Crimson Moon: The Howling
by McChubbin
Summary: AU, set in an alternate timeline following the events of Breaking Dawn. Alexandra "Lex" Sweeney gets more than she bargained for following a school exchange trip to Forks. What's a spunky Irish woman to do? Lions eat lambs in this retelling!
1. Chapter 1

_**Chapter One:**_

_**Breaking The Fourth Wall**_

This shamblic, fairy-dust like bonger-esque rambling, hysterically stuck up and presumptious, Volvo product-placing author note of the latest blasphemy to insult our freakishly devoted Wendo club house was getting the standard screening test tonight.

If it was genre-plotzing cracker, it went in in the Keep pile.

If it was a stinker, it got used as kindling to warm use when the draughty, spooky but lasts-legs kind of decrepit-looking clubshack that would soon mean the A. would either have to do another of our four-strong mini-flash mob send up of our beloved god's inspired way with words when we needed club funding and we, in typically offbeat afternative where we all mooted but ripped the piss out of Twitard in typical manner of Tallaght boonie street mongrel-style squade of way too- American-nized hips and squares, would soon be kicking around upgrade spots.

The abandoned, sprawling metropolis, suitable Fallout Megaton looking beaute of a humgunoloid twelve acre abandoned squatter skaghead toilet site that was a huge twelve acre industrial part of of a survialistica's Fallout-nursed wet dream of decrepitness, having been abandoned close to a hundred odd years ago.

No-one wanted it as it was believed to be haunted due to the squealing pig noises we'd often catch on the calmer nights that gave it a La Veyan, hellish mythos vibe that was really just a bunch of hardcore scene-fag Satantist doing horrible things to piglets in a bid to envoke the half-inflated dark lord of yesterday.

I regulary took to smacking any stupidly clown-faced little faux-faggy, Harry Potter reading numpty with my massive collector's edition bible of The Necromicron-it weigh like a cinderblock of epic, wrapped in an astonishling beautiful black leather effect Evil Dead-envoking motif with a little golden stencil of cuddly Chtulthlu Squid Guardian on the front.

I bashed around many a non-commited quasi non-conformist with that fucking brick of a book.

I gave one particulary sheep-minded, uncommited-to-his-creed Goth who I regularly caught in my school's computer lab fapping through his pockets to PEREZ FUCKING HILTON of all people, a concussion.

If it was David Hasslehoff then he'd earn creepy-yet-awesome points, even more for Tom Selleck but Perez fucking Hilton? At least Paris has the whole amazing Amber Sweet Sweet Redemption that made her a sparkly ditz of a living Paragon in my eyes and thus respectable fap material.

But.

Perez.

Fucking.

Hilton.

I got a ten day suspension and no recess for six months, which was pointless considering I went to my secular school just enough times not to alert my god-modding granny to my mitching before bunking at the first available opertunity to go paintballing with my motley gang of assholes.

I belted that uncommited, poser Goth fucktard Perez fapping needs-to-die-in-a-fire red flag to my Hulking Nerd Rage, baiting-and-bashing him into a concusion so intense his empty skull nearly cleaved in two.

Now and forever more in the Learn Together American-style Allied Athiest Alliance-approved secular school I went to because I'm like an all knowing and shamelessly lampooning the fact, Irish-American Juno McGuff sort who was known as Tank Girl around town not so much that I looked exactly like her following the Metapod sparkle explosion at sixteen from useless, bland lump to sparkly Butterfree and I floated like a rainbow mohawkian valkyrie of cool, strutting like Mike fucking Jagger down the halls with my basjy-book-of-poser-pwn under my arm and my box of sniper paraphanalia in the other.

I was a untouchable, smug-ass, pure as pissed-on snow badass motherfucking child of a Teg Nugent type proud, NRA card carrying member of the elite Mentalist Mafia.

I am a legend in my own mind.

Adopting Wendonese for our giggity lingity, the gang of childhood friends (and first boyfriend come friend for lifer) I rolled with lived a sort of nerdy nomadic mini-tribe, compact little clusterbomb sort of existence where we were more comfortable amongst our nerdy uber-geeky compatriots than the majority of smacked up "zombies" that gave Tallaght it's much meligned but accurate and hileriously tongue-in-cheek typical Irish self-depreciating wit of constant _war-zones in the summer_ sort of analogies.

They all had us shitting Zhu Zhu hamsters with braws of unrepented, unrestrained geek-snorting laughter, for we were nothing if easily amused out in the arsehole of No Man's Land with fuck all to do with ourselfs but pool our monies and roster weekly, dirty grubby evil pidgen squipping with awesome-sauce Aersoft rifles.

We found ourself effortlessly falling into a silly little pun-o-riffoc tongue-in-cheek zombie survivalist reanactment club.

That's how we rick-rolled for whilst we all knew we were so aching cliched, stereotypical little quirky outcasts from a perfect if -in places actually rather scenic in tiny microcrasming sort of little flowering pretty daises that inexplicably at times rose up from fetid, festering lumps of crumbling, repugnant cow shit- sort of way.

But when did we ever give a clusterfuck about anything but our own litte obsessions, quirks and what have you?

We were everything culty, great, slocky, offbeat, quirky, kitzy and a whole galaxy of deep, cutting cliches that held no resonance for we didn't care-we were having the time of our our lives shooting seven shades of stick cornsyrupy hand-made, ingeniusly re-usable waste-no-want not refillable quibbies that I, after slaving with babysitting disgustingly scummy Jacintas and cheese-toothed but not in an awesomely familiar, brotherly way like Simon's eternally reassuringly unique yet slightly iffy Guinness Marmite and cheesey Chikatee puff breath.

Not that great-in-a Romaro context kind that was so fucking disgusting it put me right off my choco-milky Frosties when I tried to yank my eyes away from the brainless, so screamingly obvious druggie shellsuited scumbag zombie Jacintas that shuffled around in a drolling, dead-eyed look that, to paraphase my latest obsessions of Lovecraft and David Gaider- Gatoraiding:

Their gaits were lumbering and stupidly, comicly Perez Hilton grade fucking retarded yet they were hair-trigger half-skagged out crazed, warningly grim-faced lunacy provokers that could all be summed up as:

_I am Smackhead Princess Stabbity! Shuckity shuck shuck! I'ma pawn yer vintage Caseo watchie-talkie fer geeeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeaaaaaar!_

But then they'd see I was well connected in what was actually a well thought out safety quirk on the heroin-infused hell-mouth that Tallaght had slid into during a horrific criminal oddysesy in the Eighties that, like with most large districts, there was always a low grade level of crime in every corner of the word but this...fuck, this shit was _real_.

Pure grade A marading, snarling, crazed shambling corpse army of skagspawn that more than once got too fucking close to our comandeered abandoned rickshaw of a tiny, craggy-but-charming abandoned tatcher-cottage that was on it's way out, but whilst we never all brought our more valueble swag out, we were nothing not innately stubborn little basterds, devoted to the nerd-gasmic Grey Warden-like cause and would squib them right into the killzone of a horrific, local spook story of a place that made the Deep Roads look like Lego Disneyland.

It was a hell unto itself and yet so achingly, heartbreakingly awesome, for if you listened closely on a disquieting, frightening silent boonie sticks of nowhere flat town kind of starless, moonless night and turned south facing into the gauping festering scar on the landscape that was the Hellmouth over a high spiking ridge of basalt ridging rock that had broken through the jungle-weed ,clashingly vivid green grasses against the fetid sludge, it was like Boonie Town itself recoiled in horror at it.

Dublin-or indeed all over Ireland-was full of mythical prose in the air, of horror stories, haunting shrieking breezes that especially rattled the cheese musk off my pally-wally ex-boyfriend-come-friend-for-life Marmaduke's breath, with regards to turning him into a jibbering mess of cheesy, quivering souflee of a pansy-ass!

The man was so achingly aligned with our Fantasy Slayer Glauntlet Xander Harris it was frightening amongst itself but CheeseWiz was such a bullshitting little mouthflapper sissy girl Remington forfeit-dancing stone cold, grade fucking A:

Big. Girls. Blouse.

At the best of times in the howling winter, Simon "Alistair " Teagan would act with edgy, almost jonsingly skaghead-like, jerky movements, shoring up what ever cracks he found in the crumbling plaster walls of our club-house with the quirky baby-sized pots of Playdoh he'd magically whip out from the No-Where Dimension when he though he was alone and he'd be like a big man-baby at Christmas, derping out over undying love for the pudgy squiddiness seconded only to his eternal undying, inter-species-erotic flavored love of our unofficial Pug mascot:

My antrofied living Paragon soulmate that was my Homer J Simpson pugg-wuggy Guetamalen Insanity Pepper life partner despite still being a six-month year old puppy, life partner in crime and mischief.

The Play-Doh also had the handy use of plugging up the whistle holes because Simonstair was deadly afraid of banshees and was so horrified by the thought of them that he couldn't even go near a bag of Banshee Bones-super-mega retro Irish kitschy Eighties bone-shaped cheesey poof alternative yokes that had this incredibly unnatural but gorgeous orangy fallout-dust coloured powery cheesy stuff that I tripped Banana Bunch balls over.

Some Bahnhammertime epic childhood Halloween prank sent him loopy-doop 'cause he was a big kid at heart being one himself with having been raised by his Bristol-ex-pat little manchild of a father Declan.

Deco the Bruce Campbell Ginger Doppleganger Man Ghost Bus Conductor, I shit you not if I might wax Roddy Doyle!

Deco never fully revealed the whole shebang about what happed to make his son Simonstair Marmadukie Cheesewizzy Teagan so spooked he couldn't even stand to be near me when I ripped the shit out of him at every chance I got with Rizla papers and one of our four-strong team's little combat plasticy combs in a snarky my-ex-girlfriend-mate-for-life-is-a-total-asshat-kind of way.

Even kazooes freaked him and it was the source of such epic piss taking that one day, he's had enough and in his typically awesome half Bristolian fusion Tallaght accent of strangely fitting English-dudebro meets Dubby rascal lilt,he had an atomic Alistair-flavored hissy.

He was a Steve Valentine-voiced manchild- which is exactly why, aged fifteen and a bit, I owned the first box he ever came in- and it was perfect for him because that's exactly how he was when he wasn'y about to poop a Cornish Game Hen over my merciless little sisterly-ribbing which culminated, not long after I was freaking out over the Dragon Age Awakening thing that he'd had enough and, being a camping fantic yelled, in his often incredibly overly sensitive pure, Bristollian high pitched baby wail tone that was so fucking hilerious it only made me terrorize him even worse!

The Banshee thing had culminated one great night when we were on a camping trip to the Wicklow Mountain borderlands with Bahnhammer and his awesome girl-after-my-own-Kraut-snitzelling heart German Pandora of awesome with her Rammstein guitarist, bone shredding covers that fused Courtney Love with Dani Filth and she purposely, being privy to the whole hilerious pisstake, regularly utilized her astonishingly epic glass-shatteringly high shriek to royally freak out the crowned douche prince of Tallagh-den!

He burst into tears, crying into his Marmamite and sobbed out in pure quarter ex-pat Bristollian fusion accent that was like an even sissier Alistair voice that nearly killed me with choking asthma fits of helpless, atomic gut-grabbing hysterics made all the more surreal given the fact we'd all been dressed up as our favourite characters in perfectly crochetted splintmail that the unbelievably otaku-ish camping trip organised my our own little nutty DCU Eirtakon Harajuku girl butter- nutter Japanese dynamo we stuck to like crazy glue and whom was a language geek who'd run out of brain space for basic English out of astonishly jaw-droppingly learning seven diferent lanuages fluently in exactly one month of placement at DCU's world-famously great Lingo Lab- had organiseded in honor of the midnight release of Dragon Age: Awakening.

We named her Push, short for one of the greatest silly chop-socky ninja assasin movies Lazerdisc titles ever:

_Ruthless Daisy Pushinuppi,_ for her immigent Japanese parents gave her the sillier-still delightly unknowningly unPC European name of Daisy-Root MaChinky.

She giggled insanely at a dog-botheringly high tone over EVERYTHING and went into overdrive at Simonstair's crying fit that was epicly hysterical.

"I hate you!.You're a fucktard, Chester Benington-ly Dumbo Eared little slaphead fucker baldy ass demonic woman sent from the Deep Roads to break my cheese-clogged heart, mock my love of manly-ass meatspead and get me so worked up I set off the dogs of the HOLE itseeeeeeeeeeeelf!"

He regularly, at _least once an hour _worried dogs!

His voice went crazy high pitched when he was pushed hard enough-which didn't take much, all things considered!

"_Fuck you_, Unsexy Lex!" His boyfriend petname for me that never left him even when the magic died after all of five seconds...

"I'm going to my _awesome jungle-net camo-print King o' motherfucking Ferelden tent _and I'm going cry into my squishys because you're such a meeeeeeaaaaannnniiiiiiie! Bwaaaahahhhhh!"

He would be pushing the twenty two mark at the beginning of my kids-in-America-adventure...

Myself, Push and our rolly polly Nintendo fanboi Nicky Snowden completed the four-pod trinity of Aersofting nutters, rounding off the derp-train, and he was an absolute _fucking nutter_ slaughterhouse moonlighting, Unber-Realism Gore Bag punting deviant comrade in arms of the big chicken subnucular sissy failing Bawwwwwstair we mercilessly poked and proded until he cried and flipped out so bizzaro-worldly brillantly.

Myself and, Sick Nick were like brother and sister-as he so called himself, all bad ass-like cause his Gore Bags had lamb placenta and actual animal viscera in them-the real deal!- and he loved the the fact he was regarded in our small little commutity as an untouchable crazy, sick-in-the head mad-man who was like the Daveth of our little group- cheeky, mischieveous and in a total bro-mance with Girl Jocks Simon with the cosmic lovefest fact that they were straight-gays and touchy feely in that special way that blokes only got when they were karmaticly twined.

Nick and Simon were the same age, lived in a spacey manor house that Simon Sissypants shared with him their entire lives as their mothers were BFFs and they had the electric cosmic kind of bromate relationship that was utterly Turk and J.D (guess who's who!), one that I creamed myself silly over on an every-six-seconds way, right up to the tip of my lurid, ever-changing in colour pink liberity spiked monolithic shrines to my endlessly sadisticly evil, tortureous brain.

Our Go Go Yubari of the group full, gorgeously Tenchi-bimboesque mad thing Push's full Japanese name (out of what feels like millions but we all call her some varient of Push) was the beautiful geisha-inspiring daydream provoking Mihoshi Kaziyi and it was her all over-skatty brained and typically crazed tiny Japanese girl, which was her theme song happily enough as we tripped wasabi balls over our trans-contentially fantastic love of Weebl and Bob.

Our name, changed after a vote, simultanious honoured one of the greatest contempto-time-fap eighties-style spandextered new school un-PC hair metal bands ever created and the local name for the Mordor on our doorstep.

We were now the ridiciulously awesome _"Hole Patrol"._

Steel Panter and survivalist fangasmers a go-go!

B-e-a-uuuuuutiful!

Push was hopelessly but adorably sparse on English but she was fluent in my fantasy native tongue of German honed by my undying love of Till Clusterfuck of Panzerfist Mayhem Laudemann and we had our own secret little chit-chats that regularly put the shits up Simon and Nick, largely because it's just a heavy metal blunt-tastic language and we sound like we were plotting things (not far off from truthfullness!) before their illiterate backs.

And so, in our typically lulzy _"Roast The Fail" _on cold, shivery wet Friday evenings, we shot the shit to bits in a little Quiet Man-er of an ancient zoning hazard of a cottage in which the craggy look to it only added to it's intrigue and chingwag chats about who'd been the Scoobie to beat in nonsensical imaginative fights.

We'd guffaw ourselves silly in the old clubhouse of Nefarious Wendoderping Basterdz.

Tonight was shaping up to be a _lion-eats-lamber _type session and we all pooped Zhu Zhus over the silly and superflously long as fuck Maruding Moronic Myerlurka Nazila Failus smug as a shit-eattened Hutzian looking poobah of a shovel faced derpy textbook mythical, morbid obese American "epicly Bama Llama" looking sister of Mary bleedin' Harney but even this melted, congealing lump of lulzy sparklefail-lardiness could even make Ireland's much maligned pact-with-Donut Devil shambolic mess of an international punchline that was our Health Minester who was poster child for Pizza The Hutzia body shapes look like Megan friggin' Fox.

Before the club, we'd met at whoever's roustered place and we used to bullshit and laugh about how in the heck did she managed to linger on her Oreo-carved lard throne of gluttony and hilerously visually irony in having a putty mouldaloid Hutzian in a lurid pink, visable-from-space eye-bleeding neon monstrosity of her trade mart mau-mau tents we all knew she wore for t'was only her fat, empty head that the media photographed.

Even so, her American double Nazi Fail of some chancer tryna' reinvent a gloriously break-neck whizzing sparkley in all the right ways pinwheel firecracker of a cult genre that to our slavishly biased heads decreed a genre cleanser be staged and we lighter-fueled to death a little mushy green ephedgy made of a vate of congealing Playdoh Simon always seemed to conjour up from mid-air, the big man-child!

To stay in shambolic flash-mobber power doing wonders for our epic clubhouse Aersofting enstuiastes called what else but the A. or to be formal- Aersoft Squibalicious Squad, in honor of our collective worships of Joss " The Grand Wendo" Wendon of Firefly and our gospel on deliciously sardonic, black humour contempo-vamps, the immortally Wendo-tastic complete super-uber Stupidly Expensive Delexuo Win Edition with the memorbialla treasure trove of a beaute of a Slayer chest-a piratey looking antiqued chest full of awesome that made me shit a hamster with happy Zhu-Zhu shuffle dancing down the halls of my massive farmland barn house home when it had come a week early with reliable old Fedex

Super-childish and lameass I derped out, but it was classic, never-gets-old silly squishy lumps of retrograde joviality in this merry band of loveable, snarky assholes.

When we ripped something, we really went to town on it and the Sparklepifail Diaries provided no end of epic piss-taking rip of a slew of lulzy, pun-tastic authoress' notes contains _stupidly_ large amounts of pre- "_movie_" Epiccy Failius Mid-Lifian Crisis ClusterfuckWank levels of epic fail and it was with glee over the horrifed tweenie pleb masses that we regularly took to shooting seven shades of cornstarch squips into them when we'd bait them with as many Breaking The Genre books to huck onto a Wickerman meets Myerlucky weird as fish-brained effedgy and my own mind-lingo Ye Olde Derpy Assburgeria Insomniac Neuralgia Pain Brain Aneryism Speak brought on largely by the fact I've written an opus-sporfle-hentai 100 plus fucking pages on a barely broken 72 hour non-stop derp train of insomnia once thanks to quite **literally** and punnily 'writing' in pain of the head-trip inducing agonizing dental skull-fuck that is ongoing, creeping Zevran Backstab Surprize Prickly Caged Dicked Unlubed Sparkle Elf Spirited Sodemizing Buttsexins stabbity stabbities of face-melting bone-siezing pain that's turned me utterly Zhu Zhu Hamster shitting insane and whilst normally I write trippy stuff when I'm hairline-deep in a vat of liquid cross-border Northern Lalaland imported British-made Uber Strenght Hardass Certified Neurophen which is the only thing that helps the Ziggy-frific lumbering muscle-golem arms going supernova on a pulsating, throbbing watermellon that is the perfect mephaporic embodiment of my pounding, pulsing skull...


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two:**_

_**Spider Jersusleam Would Be Proud...**_

As you can see by that splort-tastic intro, things are decidingly weird in my sleep-deprieved, recently ESP-ponentally Joss Weydon Homage-O-Ramma of an extremely silly ass pain-addled decent into utter madness, perfect for machine-gun zinging my mind off it in my brain's sado-masochisticly evil ways of making me deerp out best whilst having turned into a Shumbling Zingerlla of a Dental Torturing Slow Burn Deathing Narcolepy Derp Zombie but as the torment continued undampened because of the fact I haven't had chance to hop the border and stock up what is looking increasingly like a angelic choir-cued plinthed Ark of Sweet Release Covinent From The Agony of a long, close to a full week without sleep or pain meds, I figured, fuck it- mightas well write myself to distraction make a shitty falcon-punched face of shitty shit-mac-shit-shit a great deal more lulz kissed than it could've been.

I apologize in advance for rambling but please understand- the agony is like a rapidly-tighting vice on my skull and around the jaw that has plagued me for most of my formative years.

So help me if I ever run into my biological parents up in Hippy Cloud Ville and find one of them entrusted me with a hereditary twice monthly unholy hell of a genetic curse, so help me I don't care if they're the Dumblyderp hempy old skool colourful and cuddly hippies I sorely wish existed outside of my poor addled braaaaaiiiin or my derpy grandaddy funkadelic bongo in the key of awesome.

If either of them gave me this far less than awesome crushing travesty of a hand-me-down tiny darkspawn taint deep inside my jaw, so help me, I am going to go to seven shades of crital-mass levels of atomic cunt punting them into the surface of the sun regardless of how exponentially epic and quirky they might so obviously be.

The pain's making me delightfully insane and this is the first time I'm pain-waxed unclouded by chemical means of relief.

What a fantastic state to start my sprawling, lullzy bomb-chika-waka ba-bomb-chi-bomb Barry White barotone funkadelic Muppet Show walrus chorus line version reboot of Twilight that's been kicking around in the questionable insanity-soaked dark corners of my brain since I first tortured myself far worse than melon-smooshy headachiness by reading them.

By that merit, Twilight is a Byron-esque, Rice-ian masterpiece compared to the fire seering my mandible bones to the point that I'm a hair's breathe from doing some DIY Ralph Wiggumy frightingly Saw-lulzly dentestry with a needle-nosed pair of plies until, small mercies, I ever passed out for one hundred days of bliss or I die of blood loss and anapolaptic shock brought on by the tetanus in the rusty but sharp intruments I'll use to do survivalist dentistry on myself if just means a merciful death.

Anyways, this silly romp is helping to take my mind off things, so that's good.

A lot of the characters involved are long-dorment comparmentalised mentalers from my Catch 22 years who only come out when I'm going through a brain-trauma, a jolting lullzy catalyst of inspiration or just seering liquid agony.

Sorry if I seem like I'm uber-bonged out of my tree but trust me.

I don't spliffy the reefie as my drug-du-jur is sugar cane fruity US-import cola nector of the Snark God but I did the _try-it before you fry it s_ort of sixteen year old curious sister route of a sporadicly bonger at-times amazingly awesome Rage Machine-lead singer-channel brother before he became a bornagain waxer of the uber fail global Pedobear allience god-modder in the sky thing and whilst I remember being astonished as to how both old Simpsons and classic Muppets got, impossibly, even more hysterically awesome in that one single lungful of curiousity, all it did was make me giggle like a Japanese bilingual language ops jungle-fevered herpy-derpy Harajuku girl at a zentai convention of squee, Rastafarian chocolate foxes and a collective rainbow-jizzing bukkake circle jerk complete with arching ropes of wasabi sauce and kawaii desu splerf.

Sweet Zombie Jesus, I am channelling a pain-med jonesin' snarkly arse Spider fucking Jeruselem right now and it's the greatest thing ever.

Incidentally, I'm looking peaky and zombie-ish myself thanks to to all this.

I looked in the mirror after avoiding it out of scarying myself homophobic but I braved it today (the third straight day that's blurred into itself like fur-fag-fappery on twisted after-party poloroids where Donald snorts cock-juice off yiffy pictures of Mrs. Potts, the rolly-polly Angela fucking Landsbery silver fox of Disney Jizney, the porno offshot studio.

...

...Okay, Spider Jersuelum and 2, The Ranting Gryphon- the only man in all times past, present, future and beyond including all bizarro-world situations who is **ever** permitted to openly yiff to his crabby heart's content for I want to have his and Spider's snarky babies of plus fourthy six bajillion times more squidgy and angry epix than regularly fucking munter babies.

To pineapple sex wax Siruis Black, though, hardcore Disney Furries scare the _**shit**_ outta me and simulationous make me rage for their blantant raping of my childhood hench much theraputic piss-taking.

So help me, if there are Toy Story-related yiffy fucks, I will go Head!Cannon Charlie Swann-Bob fucking Thorton on the creepy weirdos of the horrible, oh-my-sweet-fucking-bippy-kill-it-with-fire variety of weirdos.

Still, anythings better than hopelessly looking every inch the starving corpse hostage-type kinda girl who looked more like a skeleton due to a Skeletor body type every single picture of my long dead from randomised,dry-cocking sponantious organ failure female compatriots of derp were cursed with.

What else but could I pray to Homer-Puggu for it absolutely_** had**_ to be done, not so much the obvious reasons but the fact my ickle fur babie had this unique Homie-Womie doggie laugh when bellyscratched to sweet distration that was exactly like his namesake's high-pitch, girly giggles only in dog from and it was so awesome I Facejizzed it on my vidi-pod and he became something of a local celebrity novelty of a dog, rolling in tummy scritches and looking utterly pleased as punch with his silly old self for all the free scritchies he got.

If he were human, he'd be the Smuggy Huggy Puggy Yet Covered With Bernard Black-esue faux snarkyface loveable asshole charm of my ironicly Trainee Gun-Bonering Gardai recruit snerking partner Simon "Marmaduke McCheesewiz" Teagan if only because he got so much nerd-props when Dragon Age came out for his surname, cheese and onion Tayto topped with a godly combo of Triple XXX jalapeno-infused mozzarella hybrid stuff he'd wack onto toast to creat ZomFragger toast.

Oh yeeeaaah! Duff Girl is thrusting in the direction of the awesome! OHHH!

Simon had a disturbingly worrisome love that dare not speak it's Voldmorty squick inducing disgustingly wrong-tasting travesty of mother's milk blasphemy which was this weird ass Guinness Marmatite stuff he blagged off his junk food dynamoto Bruce Campbelly epicly hammy moonlighting impersonator working dad Declan "Hit The Deco BannHammertime" Teagan for he owned a priceless, rare set of uber-cheese in that proudly declared himself a life long MC Hammerfan and he'd caught the pants tossed by a then circling-the-drain washed out streaking madman so it was an exceptionally surreal bit of fluff.

They looked like Alistair-channeling peroxide follicle Holocasting Spacey young Simon Pigg and that's exactly which is exactly why we were thicker than thiefs, especially since Crispy Deco-who was our club house free swagging contact for Tayto Cheese and Onion bags of potatoe chip foils of heaven-.

Deco was jaw-droppingly young and reckless at only fiveteen when he got Simon's absentee Ma up the stack on the first date, the salty bastard!

And at only pushing snailpace Rock of Trumph into his fourties, Bahnhammer-time was the still -hip-to be square-enough to hang out with us type asa vocariously, very young at heart thirty six going on little sissy boy when we ran riot with our Aersoft custom paintballs and he acted the exact polor opposite of his chinly counterpart.

Myself?

I'm a disaster-piece semi-hair dyed Orish faux-anorexic looking yoke channelling the skinnier side of Lucy Lawless (as loads of people keep on telling me since the Xena Warrior LesbianicLegendarily Epic Adventures In Orc Zealand began and I love that fact) before hand but now, amazingly after the clusterbomb hell of raging PMS and neuraglia, I look like rainbow haired, rakish Marla Singer with fantastic, gorgeous Keira Knightley cheekbones-the only thing pretty about the fucking card-carrying grand fucking Poobah of the Hollywood Holocaust Bridgade

I look and feel like death warmed up, double prong-forked in my face and slapped face down on a towering inferno of paaaaain.

This is the real snarky me when I have enough pain and lack-of-sleep argle-ness in me to override my cuddly impish Irish charm and unleash rarely seen but slumbering Spidera Jerusera Bitch Tits PMS Avenger Tank Girl Jonsin' For Kanga Cock, Beer, Narcs And Faggies, the furious, deeply buried rage-a-holic that erupts in controlled sprinkles of semi-normality as is standard Pon Farr but every once in a while, like an unprouncably named Swedish clusterfuckyou Hellmouth Break of torture porn jaw bone skull fuckery that sends me loco once in a rare blood moon every seven or so years to prance before you now and rampage batshit crazy like a schizy imp on the unsuspecting masses in a gleefully sadistic take on ripping apart Breaking The Genre.

In honor of the epicness about to unfold, this month I need a lulzorificly awesome humdinger of a cracking up survivalist name as that's the kind of mood I'm in-running on pure andreniline and the nicer side of my evil neural system making me trip Banana Bunch balls on naturally-induced painkillers in the body that I know about simply because I'm a totally biology nerd and I'm the crazy sort who likes to work myself into coniptions just for a good larf, just like any craicheaded Irish valkyrie renagade serial Punzer MacShockerfist-MaGee. (Jen's ObamaLlamaDingDong 'cause she's my dick (puns very much fucking intended) in the Chocolate Obie Fox Brigade who swoon over chocolatey nuggests of presidental man-flesh.

Well, granted it's only be because Obie is so heartbreakingly pissing-ice-cube-cucumber-lumber effortlessly cool master debater. ZING!

I'm normally much more ditzy when I'm lucid and subdued but in honor of my wax sweet walrus on distraction theory giggles or temptations to run into a hoard of skags who'll happily rip out my goddamned fucking jaw, I kinda need it for the former lulz, pain aidled but happy in rare occasions were, like all good piss taking Irish giggliers, I'm a weeping pain-addled cake-flaking clown of a derper behind the mask.

If I wasn't so fecking far away from my train-striked out salvation.

So yes, perfect situations and wide eyed, sleep-deprieved observations on the silly, lulz survivalist undertones of my plight which help to make the happy hormones kick the crap out of the painzers.

Are you frightened?

Good!

Relax. I'm so well used to this kind of thing that like a wise old Kemosabe Samurai Ninja Epicer, I use my trials and trivalations as mana for the funzies.

I want you to come on a salty hot atomic geyser on that lovely fight-or-flight buzz of andrenline.

I'm holding a gun to your head but it's filed with Zydrate, T-Virus, Toxic Waste, all actual-tried-and-teeth -disolvingly - glutton-for-punishment-me-tested delisciously cultish, god-honest tried and tested actual drinks you can drink whilst you hopefully re-read this cunt-punting clitter dicking bomb fucked into a TNT-rigged remote operated Speed Bus gunning it Let's Get Freaky MPH, detonating smack in Myerlurk epicentre of fail and blasting away the filthy, choking Super-Aids filled sulphuristic infestation of fail in two once-noble and amazing genres that she single handled reduced in four books perfect for warming you by the fire as kindling as you recide from The Weydon Bible of Gospel Truth On The Subject Of Contempory, Hip-Yet-Cultishly Shlocky Pop Culture Vampire Entomology that every single fucking one of you brainless marading sparkle-fags need to be smacked in the face repeatedly with.

Perferably the multi-tasking Epic Army Proveribal Swiss Army Knifed Book Of A Thousand Year Golden Age that Myers brought down, sullied, shat all over our peaceful yet sardonic and brillant fandoms that offshot on the succed of our god,

our contempary Bram Stroker with a dude-bro haircut that doesn't look like a Donald Trump wig on a foot-faced walking fucking poster child for no more sexytimes between The Trumpster, a solid wooden freakshow mannaquin, a pot of glitter-lube and a severed, festering, Hiroshima Scale Kawaii Fail Vegie-Aids tainted severed foot with a retarded Sharpie derp face drawn on it by a fucking serial procreator who needs her tubs tied tightly around her Hutzien No Mand's Land of a squishy blackhole of a Fart Putty neck so never again may she inflict her horrificly puppy-kick-inducing, brick-shittingly lame travesties of stompable leeches that deperately must be exterminated before they suck the blood-soaked altar of slock and sexual concications for forbidden lust, beautfully written, thought provoking Aids metaphors and sweet, sweet taboo ushered in by a dangerously suave barotoned valkyrie British insti-fucking-tution that even at the grand old age of 89 going on eterally fappable can still charm sting of a fart just going by voice and beautifully tongue-in-cheek movies that playfully poked the genre without going to town and became endoctrained in the annals of suck-head marshal law that cannot-

-Be, I repeat be _cannot _so utterly maligned and lost in fucking phonetic Spell-A-Long Fisher Price translation baby trainer-speak that the sparkly-dazed Moron Myerluck squatted in front of it like a vegetarian, melt-faced uber-fail of a Jabba, tripping Edwank McDiscoball on her own ego-tastic sense of smug satisifaction at how she single handedly suffocated our perfecly fine, Wendo-esque hipster vamps that still had their biting wit and lullzness but crucially their crazed, bat-out-of-unholy-AD/DC-twanged Hell ferality that plays such a central part in their charms and this fucking woeful-amoeba-filled dead-head fucking moron brainless Myerlurk goes and destroys all that we hold so dear in one quadrilodgy of such exponetially inmmersuable fail that it's Cheronobly-like fallout will forever taint and errode the cracked and framented formly priceless blood-filled Ark Of The Reverant Shlock Covenent of our perfectly-good-as-it was genre in an insurmountably, unpredictable bukkake-fail through time as future generations will take this tripe as gospel and it all goes down the fucking crapper.

My Xena udilating shriek for the epic Amazonian lezzibean cluster fuck flash mob, head my call, Hunter S Thumpson-esque Spidera Jerusera mental-voiced (or, if you prefer, the salty basterd Uber Yiffmeister I mentioned as the conspitorally epic inspiration behind this fucking epic rant)-

It'll help ease you into the transitionary period so much so that there prickly and lovely and twee, electricity of fright dancing along your succulent, jail-baiting, Sparkleward Hello Shitty vibration wand-fapping little brainless sheep/waste-of-humanity-hybrid to put you in just the right mood for lulzy, ranty, piss-taking funzies involving not just proper suck-head action (including that of the literal bom-chika-wow-wow variety we all wanted to happen but it nazi-failed so epicly there are people who will no doubt take it as their fucking Karmaticly Skullfucked Sutra and produced shambling, walking abortions that will bring the logical and ultrasonic soundwave-shattering travesty screaming slock-horror fans to the edge of extinction as those walking eviscarated retard bloody Derp Monkies sparkly jizzle come all over anything shiny and so fucking retarded it makes Katie fucking Price Jordzilla Munterella look like a card carrying member of Menza in comparission but of course, flipsize is at least Oompla Loompa Big Fake Melty Tits Smacked Arseface at the very least is saved by her fantastic knack for car-crash viewings of unbridled rage, fury and 5 pairs of fabulous lashes framing her feral tango-zombie-drag-queen-bitch from Planet McSlockertonly Awesome And Repgnant Simulationously In A Disgusted And Repulsed Yet Rivitingly Maniacal Contemp-phor For The Vampire Genre.

Take that, epic analogy nitpickers for I used the Munterella Defense of Over 9,000 Crital Mass Level Unblockable Contempary Truth.

I totally clusterfucked you with a,Snarky Pantsed Wendo-Spirited Verbal Queef Of Awesome.

I'm here to hold a gun to your forehead, silly Twilighters, and blast away the cold, fetid wet fish of a nazi-fail, shambolic mess that has all but crippled two otherwise epic horror genres in four books that had some mildly vague nuggies of muted interest that were Desperately Celibate Moron Housewife cluster-jizzed on and the ink so hopelessy shmeared that dubious but remote Eternal lUnnswerableWhat If of what could've in some plot nugs that I jumped on, have had the amazingly cardnal-rule following controvulated first draft in which we could've had proper suck-head feed and fuck bom-chika-waka action and respectable, noble yet fucking savage rampaging, feral, super-rabies infested wolfies worth yiffing yourself ridgid over .

Had she just followed the so-simple cardinal rules that wouldn't sway a lobotmised amoeba instead of Niagra-jizzing crusted, spiderwebb infused, celibacy-tanged, blantantly derpaliscious wet-dream flavored munt cheese of Stephenie MoronMyerlurk's epic-fail wanka-a-paloofa that dumbed down a quietly ticking over but vaguely impatient-yet-not-sure-what-for disassiated kitschy yet jaded at five years old youth of today but possible could've been saveable mall-rat-spawn hoarde of tweenies missing something good and cultishly shlocky in their lives.

You, dear, Stephenie Derpy-Derp, if you can get someone to Speshul Ed Fun-Eh-Tec-Lee dictate this rant-o-rama into the echoing,empty chase between each bloody ear, this legendary, Jersulem Patented Ming-Fucking RAGER Conconspirting With The Only Epicly Snarky-Pants Man Legally Allowed To Yif EVER In The Grand Scheme Of The Turtle-Backed Diskword Shouldered By Sweet Shibby Heffalumps That Is Tripping Speedballs In A Firmly And Fantasticly Spirited Tongue In Cheek Romp Of Epic Culty Goodness That Will Destroy Your Pitiful Attempts At Trying To Reinvent A Well Oiled H RGiger Proper AristoGoth Wendo Tended Snark Machine That Was Ticking Quietly Underground And Hip, Stalking Lioness Sort Of Way But Otherwise Perfectly Good Befoe You Fucked It Royally By Bashing It Stupid With A Disco Sequin Covered Lump Of A Sparkly Wooden Carved Crotchless Ken Doll So Bad It's Woefully Unsavable Kind Of Spamliciously Acted Contispation Faced Super-Aids Infested Wet Dream Inspired Ridiculously Lameass Fairy Woodland Forgetable Crushable Woodlice embibed diatribe on why I fucking hate people who prance around in laughably stupid cultish off-shoots of people trying to find the Almighty Shamboling Hippy Zombie whilst staring into a smashed-front microwave until your brain goes sploosh and you become just as useless and disgusting as a scrotal cheese flavored lolipop.

To the ones expecting awesome sauce in the kick in the arse army booted culty shlock Wendo-esque spirited (I'm slavishly aiming for anyway) rejigging of some plot holes that could've been extrapulated, expanded and crafted into something beautiful by someone who has all the kooky charm, wit, memorable dialogue stylings of a freshly shoveled, sshrivelled up lump of jellyfish death.

To those of you who are creaming yourselfs at my rare as a blood moon lust for screaming at anything that grates on my Alistair MacTherin-approved splorfle-cheese, I'll hold your hand throughout the whole hopelly tongue-in-ear-chamberly and possibly right side of hammy experience, heh-heh.

I do have a tendency to go to town whilst writing in first person perspective but I've always been like that and I find it reads quite well (not to toot my own horn or anything) but seeing how I'm innately pure-blooded Irish tour de force of naturally inbibed rapier-with, rant machine with honed skills in a cosmopolitan yet skaggy at the boons city of weirdness (the capital in case you're wondering if this little romp has any merits in the truth of my proverbial series of lulzy events that has formed my writing style as a jobbing recession-victim with a Xena-eqsue udilating Aersofing war-cry call to destroy The Unholy Abominonable Moron Myerluck.

Some people are based very loosely on the dimaond geezers and fleeting but memorably strangers, hipsters, vintage hippys and the Muppet Patrol Metalhead Classic Rocker-woshiping nutters of my social butterfly mother's Milky Way of colourfull and lively family friends and comrades and whom are so wonderfullysilly to inspire me to expand on so many little uber-kawaii silly but true querks of my boonie-sticks but now suburbanate upbringing of snarkdom, Some shockly of the couldn't-make-it-up kind but knowingly silly basises in the truth of my musings.

Some of them happened to mates and some happened to myself.

Some are echoes of my batty reletives and some are of crazy assed memorable randomers who's vocarious and uniquely cosmopolitan shpel on life leaves me tripping fuzzy anamatric disco hammers of glee.

And now, humungo-rant over, breathe easy, sit back, maybe have a nerve calming wank with some fluffy Zhu Zhu Hammers doubling as furry-approved ben-wha balls or a draught-protecting snake plushie.

I can hear the collective sigh of relief and I assure you, I'm now no longer screaming in Hulk-smashing agony for the rage was gone and I am no longer frenzied rat chewing on the live-wire cable of an insanely pisse-take-tastic but, in my experiences for the most part- good natured and craic-a-liciously little troopers who love a good ol' fashioned roasting complete with baked potatoes, Scrumpies , sweet sweet onion g-uh-ray-veh.

Bamf.

Yet, despite all my rage, I languish forever as a Zhu Zhu Rat in the Fade.

Shameless send ups of sterotypes, paddywackery (because I'm writing at what I know best in this petri dish country of saints, scholars and outright fucking mentalists!

And now for the shameless but funzies mood setting fappery.

I'm a-pulla Tarentino on your ass with my borderline Aspergian, live-in-8mm outtake on life in general and love of talking in pop culture Gatling Gun heavy modified Aersofting fire not helped by my undying, shambling zombie-yes, folks! There's _necro-fap_ in this reboot! Something for everyone!-love for Joss Whedon and his beautiful, squishy uber-brain and Brad Bird-dopplegangerly head that should be preserved for future generations to worship next to said Simpson and Futurama falcon-punching, est uber neinen thousand-level of epic lulzer so they can spend eternity and a day teaming up on gloriously silly vamp-romp collaberations in the bizarro-wold future as they trip the light fandigo and form a vertibal Snark Brain Trust that will echo through the ages.

And now for the truthy Kemosabe life experience Sal Hudson-derrived inspirational chit-chit on how this wholse sorry mess of a more puryist Aersofing survialist-style semi-auto but deleriously embellishe Dublin Bullshitter kind of way take on a book that had minute microbes of greatness languishing amongst the sparklepoop

.The Grampies in particular hold special resonance with me, especially Edith and Joni/Jo-Jo who are to me derived for my still-trucking away fire-cracker of a cougaring, Saturday night gladrags swing-dance grooving mad yoke at the Sugar Club and being both old skool and contemparily time-wrapped one gloriously Volcano God-approve heatway baribique al fresco radio decking disco,what does she do but she Funky Chickened to Imelda May's "Johnny's Got A Boom Boom" like an epilepticly hand-bag alien dog of a disproportional dinner plate-eyed sparrow, funny limbs-akimbo kind of gereatric seizure slam dancing that so help me when she's cuttin' a rug up in Legendary Nutter Heaven with Phil Lynott, Dim Bag, Dio, Mercury, and all by Stairrway to Awesomenness departed Paragons of rock, I'm am having that hysterically mental image engraded forever in a half-sleeve Ren and Stimpy-esque tattoo memorial in her psychopathly crazy demented memory.

She was was surely unchecked upswingly biopolar kind of batty women who didn't get Alzies but just reguluarly vorcariously priceless unpredible comical and fiery in Edith or Birdie as I called her both for the Headless Chicken Dance and the Edith Piaf concotions. With her madder than a bag of cap-nip napalmed cats personality ,utter, _utter_ eternally quick witted, comedy inspiring _legend_ of a very multi-fauceted lairy, possibly unchecked upswingly biopolor wagon of a woman who will be 80 years old going on 25 at the time I write this.

She's a Scorpio, however and whilst she's for the most part a bubbly but totally not so-way inclined militant Catholic as she is tantilisingly close to fluffing as a staunch Agnostic.

She gave up trying to turn a reneagade howlin' wolf of a granddaughter back into a coplacent wee sheepy when I unoffically (lemme just stock up for the unholy bible bashing frenzy of my mother who's balls-to-the-walls unflappably Christen Eccletic but still ensnared in the sticky Pedowolf offshots) defacted as soon as I was capable of fusing logic and sense with a thoroughly Dublinese sense for the droll and zinger-lisciously blasphemous as religions are so ripe for pardody in this slowly secularising former God Squad Pedobear Approved white-collar fascist state it was only thirty odd years ago.

As for Ol Smoky, I was never very close to my paternals scumbag culchie grumps. We don't talk bout the culchies here! Yay! Familial injokes and zing aplenty! Expect loads of this sort of humour for my mind is sharp and snarky and my bullshiting receptors are primed for the clutterfuckery!

Ol' Smoky came about as he was gleamed from discombobulated memories gleamed of my lairy lush of a truely young-at-heart grammy's long suffering but so laid back he was practically horizontal cuddly crinkly-faced squidgy Pug-faced hubbie-wub. Hence, my eternal love of the cainne Homer Simpson dog simply for the black and fawn coats and gippy personas and Grampie love.

Can't remember if he was younger or older as age is nonsense to her but I get the sense from what I've been told is that he was vivacious, bright, dry yet silly-witted and although he sadly died when I was but a curly-haired colleen of just five, the only picture I have of him shows a droopy eyed puppy dog of a man who, although not funkadelicly awesome and offbeat as the guy I drummed up to play Ol' Smoky, I always recall him smoking Amber Leaf roll ups like a trooper and the smell of the tobacco reminds me of him in it's own sentimental way.

Soooo, I ran with that and then some and turned the Puggy-dog genetic quirk of nature than runs with my Mom and my galaxy of aunties, cousins, a hileriously running "baking brownies" injoke amongst my silly aunties and Mammy that's really nothing more sinester than lazy but perfectly normal downward drooping pug -faced upper eyelids that delightfully digi-volved into glassy albino eyes for Smoky, giving him a properly fully baked look like the bongy-esque droopy eyes of my lost-too soon Grampie-Ronnie.

Incidentally, the awesome old hippy comes from my still outwardly quiet but very much lively when you chew the fat over his epic,unbelivably fucking awesome little rig that plays vinyl, cd, tapes, Betamax, 8 tracks and every little retro form of musical media audiophile fanasmic motherloding atomic awesomesauce you can think off and his classic rock vinyls. He was one of those shock-bomb guys who looked like a Snorlax, a soft-spoke huge squishy lump of the poster child couch potato pokemon but my Squishy Hippy Zombie diety, he turned utterly Meafloaf-ian in both giddyly theatrical and passingly appearence wise and whenever I went to visit my hamster-obsessed nutters of his three daughters, I was his proverbial tom-boy niece four years older than the Hamster Hoarde and schooled with a mother who always had class-act music blaring through the house from the moment I could take breath with mammoth sprawling stacks huge complication album collectionary genre-trancending stacks of EVERYTHING.

Music plays a intrigal part of my ever changing day-to-day montage of life and so, my middle aged and disarmingly tight-lipped, Sten of a stoic but still very funky in that faux-sort of comedic mid-life crisis kind of way when you pushed his rocker buttons Uncle Dave?

He's trusting me to DJ and play AC/DC's Highway to Hell if he kicks the bucket out of being just too awesome for words with his minties and rare off-beat plethora of every possible genre you could think of plus a few you might never've heard of. By and large, he was a massive 'Loafer and high-on-shredding licks air-guitar force of cuddly epic and I drew much of the "old roadie " shtick from him and coy, twinkling hints of reefer madness.

Smoky is then topped off with a gaggle of experiences and piss-taking nostaligia from family friend s who were and mostly still are old skool rocking metal-heads including one very special amazingly perfect Kurt Hammett-permed Micheal aka Micky Hammett The Hardcore Hippy as my-goes-way-back nutjob lovable asshole Stepdad dubbed him after the bitchin' do.

It differed him epicly from the hoard of Micko-boys.

In Dublin, there's always at least seven Mickey Metalhead-types floating around per mile.

Mick and his even battier bro Marty -who had a Bulmers addition that was on a pair with current Jones Cola one and then some!.

Micko was our unsung in-and-out revolving dog roadie-type, Billy Connelly Kirk Hammet bizzaro baby looking bloke with a massive belly and a Danny Devito ppenguin face that was instantly lively and awesome.

He border-hopped wily nilly going gig chasing every second day it seemed yet for some reason I'm still in the dark about for the mystery-factor than genuine bewilderment, he had a craggy dole-que look on him even in the boomies and no-one ever told me just how he got to go to such insanely epic gigs like Ocktober Fest Rammstein Clusterfuck European Panzer Fist-type metal festibals that I'd get so puppy-kickingly spitblood envious with want over my eternal love for hem which I regularly outright yelled at him to take me next time and scatty brained fecker always forgot for he was a "Eh, it must've a belter if I'm only remembing Jagerbomb flashbags...!" style of cuddly Tenacious D demented folk rock kind of bloke to speak with.

In an observational way of spinning a humourous tale of his latest ear-melting shenanagans when, with school, and all that default, necessary evil crap everyone has to defact to, I ended up demoted to a sporodic but still openly welcomed alighter when I could scrap the few pint monies I'd cough-dive for as the shack turned in a phoenix (actually a Peacock that I worked in for all of eights with a behind the bar sou-destroying sort of yank-back the-man behind the curtain kind of way and I ended up hating this meticiulously wooden cavern with a soft-light home contemp-Seventies reto-chic yet homely sort of way and whilst I quickly slipped back into my old ways when I ran screaming blue muder on the inside over the rush factor I'd taken for granted, I was back as the stool-serving Miller print drining youngest member of the gang and I still regard him as something of a roadie ol' Uncle Hippy Mick because despite his heavy metal allience in which he was so hopeless, adorably scatterbrained by years of stand a hair too close to Slipknot's amps, I'd beg him merciless to take me along when I found my German rock god alti-gods in Rammstein after he burned me a few tracks having tripped balls over the opening gambit awesomesauciness in anotherwise largely forgetable Vin Dizzy Rascally Brick Shithousiman not even seeing the epic Fuer Frei! Apocolyptic indrustal, brutal, glutteria, insanely awesome yromaniacally crazy ass square-jawed tough and indestructable as a vertible-if I might get so contemporty Kraut waxing for a bit- ten-man German Quanari army of mental, jaw-drawingly brillant yet, as I giggly discovered in my epic kraut-gasming that followed- turned out to be delisciously tonge-in-cheek when I went to the trouble of looking up the translated lyrics and quicky adopted _Du Reisct So Gut_ as my zombie-apocolypse clutter-fuck-you theme song, Aersoft-mock- battles aplenty waging brutal fucking mayhem in the boonies of Tallaght fantasy death survalist Aersoft loving tom-boy's proverbally girlish wettie dream.

Tthat as I aged and lived for the admit nowhere near as frequent owing to the fiscal shrivel of funs over the years occasional trips down to the "shack" as I still so affectionaly called it because it was so much more craggy-cottage prefab don't-give-a-shit type mecca for a pint and fandigo tripping without throat wreakingly high music, just lovely background volume were you'd shoot the shit, plot world domination and generally engage in the training ground for my fandom-whoreish specalist tendendies nowaydays as for every greasy though nowaydays glorious mid-aged post-midelifers and still the same geezer I knew as cheeky little classic rock humang sponge who was bopping to Skykard at 8, Metallica at five and it all glorious downhill down hill from there.

in the motley crew of nuts my mother seemed to magnetize towards her in that talk-forIreland gold sort of way and by the time I was seven years old, I was bopping to Journey and drinking cheeky dinky weekened treat wee tumblers of Budweider Shady, the Cabbage Patch Hippy Herdygirdy Little Rascal that descended on our local ramshaked old shack of a tinny boonie pub that later turned into a sound but not quick the same wooden Celtic Tigerlily of a serene no throat-fuckingly loud house of nostalgic complication soundtrack music that was absolutely perfect for having a jolly aul natter without screaming at each other and it was such a mecca in the sense that everyone descended on it being the only longue bar in a now swallowed-up-by a-concrete-junk former licky sticks fields and 70s kitsch bungalows to break up the rattery Quiet Man feel to the place before everyone started going hamster-stake shoe-box crazy and it was forever loss, lovely fields of horses and berries and airiness I've since come to lament over. I thought it was way too dull as a stuck up mini-metalhead.

And I was surrounded with such a sound bunch of loveable Dubs, boonie-babies, Northsides, Southsides who ripped the piss out of the ongoing unholy injoking I touched upon in the Beirut-in-spring urban legend vibe of Southside Knackerville as I was a hip Northsider and up my own hole in a cheeky way that I probably exuded from birth.

So I grew up a lover of everything as my mother played allsorts and that is why there are so many musical cues here.

I listen to it as I write in my own common but by no means chemical-zombie sense voice as I stick with what I know and it works looking savage in my biased eyes.

Incidently, the cherry on Smokey's special space cake was me having one magical movement very recently on the legendary, stars-aligning, couldn't-bull-shit-it if you tried day of a fucking amazing cross polination sparkle cloud of epicness called June 26th, 2010 during a glorious Volcano God given balmy and shredded metal-head tottie shirt derobingly awesome clutterfuck of a combined Grand Fucking Poobah strain of The Supernova Sparkle Borf Win virus hitting me so strongly that next day, I got neuralglia triggered by my rambling, stuttering em-em-er type stupidass goon stiffling comic delay that all but Myerlurk face plopped my comic timing and my out of fucking no-where epicness that has me throughly convinced that if this what happens after a once in a lifetime movent of cosmic intersteller gamma wave neutreno rutting then I have been touched by the almighty Weydon and my brain has finally at long last became the epic zinger-liscious one-lining fronted butted paddywacked Jerry Seignfield with a a No Sleep For You Zingy sleep nazi in my brain never letting the last stop of the groovy train and as you can see so crystal clear, it's doing wonders for my long-dormant impossible dream of being the Weydonese Paddywacked Zingerella Narco- Zombie dynamo who'll slay them with lightning wit and Dublin fusion Wendheads Republic of Squee hybrid language between Weydonese and classic Dub fused together to make a lingo baby so awesome my brain can't even name it yet..

And if you even understood all that insane rambling that is scaring me worse than the Hushers who gave me the inspirational creepy fucking disturbing Jack-in-the-box-of-worms type heebies in that one amazingly haunting epi of Buffy where not a singly line of Weydonese touched Stellar Michelle Gellar's lips until the sonic scream of head-fraggitry created a chain reaction epic domino head-splat of Dani Filth-esque shrillity goodness, you are awesome and I want to atomi-glomp you to happydeath.

Mork calling Zingerella!

Annnnnnny way, all working about my depressingly sparse melancholy over the fact I rarely get an upper so unbelievably mind-wetting I squee myself into a happy conipition every I come with an-out-of-nowhere beaut that has everyone currently thinking I'm bonged off my candyfloss tree.

I;m not, I assure you.

I just think Weydon happens to have ESP (Epicly Stratosphecial Pwnage) and 'cause I was in the episence of a reverse three way super T-virus cross reaction cosmic raver megaton blast, I am waxing the deliciously dude-bro and in a fantastic mood to give some much needed Weydenese to a what had the tongue-in-cheek potential to be a vampo-mutt Save By The Bell-esque opus of greatness sorely lacking from our much clogged up airways that was Myerlurked to to a horrid, shambolic mess of steaming sparkle-poop.

Anyways, before you all either lock me up with the real nutters or think I'm actually Pombah himself masquerading and being indie and internet legendary cult meme-liscious on the flip-flop, let's dial back a notch before I run of steam and tell you about the one last beautiful jem that just encapsulateds Ol' Smoky Sweeney in one single, magnificent image.

In the direct aftermath of the greatness, I went into Lush (or Looshe as we say in Dublinese) to get some amazingly miracle-working spot-zapping hemp soap when who walks in but this brilliant, flamboyently out there electric Kool Aid Funky Guitarist as he had a purple accoustic on his back and was giddy over the sparkly dazzle duster numbers in that fabulously fragrent soapy take variety of legal reefer shop as there was a seminal Gay Pride Parade prancing around the city along with a mega-fuck-ton of hilerity and squee obsession-class of a Brain Cancer Trust-sponsored Zombie Walk Flash Bob.

If they did a flash-mob in Tallagh of a a gurella cut of Thriller, I would've died of Super Brain Breaking Sporfling

Don't even get me started on the Anomynous V for Vendetta-meets Pirates of The Carribean via Muppet Treasure Island amazing pictue that my vid came overloaded on and fritzed out (I got the Zombie Walk, though so it's all good and shambooey (shuffling and ambling simulataniousy aka zombie classic walk).

I am so going to try and get down a piss-take langage glossary because this is such a rare occurrance that I simply have to log it for you Weydos out to know that godly karma forces were at work when a little pleb in the kaliescopic oil slick of Dublin, Ireland got touched by the great one's omnipotent pressence and I a'int talking about the Pedowolf approved rage and vengence and shame-junkie glaring all down and looking on us all leech-loving yiffing twinkies of nerdish space marines of shlockly fun cultism.

If anyone can translate all that, you are offically ridiciously awesome and must help me organize a Locke extravaganza of hysterially funny piss-take Twi-bashing Yankovic spins on the soundtracks!

It will be, to qout my other sparkly god of snark Alistair "MacYeOldCheezeWizDynama" Therin who is lampooned mercilessly in a self-roasting monlogue of indulgent DA:O fapping brilliance I think on my part but stop listening to me shred the proverbial electric Bronze banana here, folks.

I don't this to end and so I'm channelling Bubbliscious Pop Culture Buddy Weydon into a posessed leprauchaun opus of both Dublin with and snarky pantsliness.

Hope my gamma ray mutation can at least bring hope and a bit of giddy fun squeeing for the cosmo craic to millions of lost and befert yiffing suck-head leechies.

I love you all for you give me hope when the planets are normally and I'm just as genderbendered Bernard Black-esque bitter as the rest of us when that strange, glowing manderin with the flinkering halo that's kind of...OH GOD MY EYES!

Hee!

It's like 365 Days Of Gloom And Wet But Vampy Overcast Paradice here at the best of times, folks.

I shit you not.

I want to meet my Blondie Bear and my Ozzie.

Please? Please, ESPing Weydo who has being so very very generous to me already.

Please may Seth Green and James Sultan Of Sardonic Rapier British Punky Leech Awesome Marsders be thrust into a yiffy-leech burrito of yummy into my hands?

No? okay, I'm more than happy with the Narco-Zombie Zinerellaness.

And you just read all this in Colin Farell's _In Bruges_ accent, didn't you, you cheeky paddywacking little monkey, you! I know this whole shpel makes absolutely no sense and has nothing to do with anything but I've set the tone anyhoo.

Are you relaxed? Sitting comfortably?

If you're cyber-cafe sufing, please stop fapping in a subly yet obvious way through your pocket to pictures of Happy Halloween Vampy Pikachu, please? It's disturbing and hances are I'm posting right next to you without you even coping my distracting disco ball Sparklefailward proof sheleleigh-come-pointy tipped Saint Sam Paddy Jackson-blessed steaking staff of rigteous Pirate Viking Zombie Tie-Dye Hippy Gay Gandalf fury, fair enough.

But don't say you're not at the very least totally nippled-bonered.

I make no judgements on freaky strokes for freaky folk an' all but you people are manson-grade tripping Klawpacky-ass Haraju-grade banzi bananas and whilst I love you all to death as my felly sarcasticly dry and hip compatriots of all that is right with vamps and mutts, you're putting me off my Crystal Death cocktails that yes, I do actually make because I'm an beyond borders Scoobie and I bring out the Scoobie Brews!

_Yay! I'm a Irish bizarro world alcoholic acocathary nerd! Wheeeeeee!_

I find writing in first person with Weydonese dialogue quirks make for a spirital mass dust-ember- mushrooming all-encomapsing Myerlurk Holocausting napalm of greatness in my own silly egomanical yet very really tongue firmly sticking out my ear humple and twee and game for a laugh.

I hope this Brain Bleach Recipe that I literally, like with every remotley cocktail Bunson Hondeydewing I do, I do for the lulz that cannot be ignored and must be silenced by silly to-each-it's own sterotypically paddywacked pitchers of gutrot because I adore the global roasting as I can laugh at my nation's not-far-off-the-mark Samuel L Jackon-esque awesome Snake Charmer Viking God worshipping madness in every sense and it's a harmless but delightfully lulzy Weydon homage and I do it for the bevies!

And now for some Re-Enforcing The Stereotype Irish Weyndo Emerald Moon Blotto Lulzapalooza!

Let's get the ball rolling and start by a fruity, lemon-soury Brain Bleach to take the horrid Myerlurking shadow off thing. You will need plenty of ice for the iced, frosted lemon effect that really makes it a great barbique paleete cleanser or, if you're doing a guild rave, dress up as vaguely dominatrixy cleaning ladies with lemony trinkets in your hair for Kim and Aggie go all fruity for lemons and bicarbinated soda powder or Popping Candy which can give a chemical reaction effect on the cheap.

The lemoniness will drown the bicarb taste or, if youre really poncy and I want to try it so hard one day but t'is a rare thing indeedy in my neck of the woods:

Dry ice for that proper Beaker and Bunson touch of the theatric!

Just add together Lemon Schaapps, Sminoff Ice, runny lemon-curd to your own personal taste as it's potent stuff with a ridiculously sour Atomic Sour Simpsony Jawbearker effect to it from time to time but, that said- maybe the ridiculously Manfleshy Orc-superfluously awesome Rastafrian Space Machine in your guild might be feeling daring!

Piqued your interest, then?

THUNDERCATS, GOOOOOOOOOOOO!

But first, the scary disclaimeer doohicky to cover my giddy ass! Lional Hutz-narate it to take the edge off!

I do this often when I hear or read certain strings of words.

Like any paragraph or sentance beginning with the opening gambet of _"Good news, everyone!"_

You just read that in Professor Hubert J Farnsworth's voice, didn't you?

Yes, you bloody did! Don't lie!

Anyways: In the curious case of fan-fiction, a touch of seriousness needs to be had before the lulzy:

_BIG SCARY LEGALITYNESS!_

This fiction contains instances of violence, mild peril, copious amounts of swearing, pop culture references, monsterous imagery, mild drug usage, both prescribed and illicit and several mentions of bom-chika-wack sexual activity between two consenting parties. Please note that I feel the need to clarify that one of those scenes happen to involve *rough* consenting sexual activity and mid-core yiff and in no way should be misconstrued as rape. 

Beastiality bait, maybe? Eh, that's...yeah, humungo grey antropologically bewildering yiffer subject...

Please be aware that the age of consent in my country is sixteen but the legal drinking age being eighteen, strangely enough. 

You can bone like Catholic bunnies but no beer goggles for you! The horror! and take that to mind when reading. If you are in any way uncomfortable with anything I've outlined here, please do not trouble yourself by reading.

All usage of pop culture including but not strictly limited to various pop, rock and funk bands along with noted brand names, television shows both American or otherwise as well as the questionably 'intellectual' (*snort*) property of Stephenie Myer is in no way used in an attempt to infringe on any copyrights. Whilst I doubt anyone from that world would indulge in the rambling fictional minestrations of a broke, bored young writer from the fragrant arsecrack of Ireland, you can never be too careful and thus, this detailed disclaimer has been put in place to ensure both your safety and mine. 

And now- more rambling Myerluck-riffing sprawling nonsensically twee authoress notes!

Ahembo!

Shameless ESP lovings and props to my American counterpart go-to, honorary Weyndo Xena of nicely bubbly homo-erotic girl crushing uber-snarky Daisy Pushiuppi Banana Bunch Hit Girling freaking juggernaught of epic, epic atomic winzos Jen "Jade Dragon" Jones for whom I reserved an extra-special cameo in this mayhem that's suitable injokey for our collective Beavis and Butthead snerfing wax the magical wallus seasons on Yahoo!

We are humungous dorks with delusions of granduer and world domination and my soul purpose in life is to pander to your non-existant ego by casting you as some random whirlwind fucking banshee of snark in 99.9% of all my writings.

In the words of the Cry-Laughy, Fag-Haggy Donkey Bawing MSTing sessions we have over everything irreverently nerdy:

You are ridicioulously awesome.

Almost there, folks.

Patience is a virtue, though I'd say by now it's wearing thin.

Be nice to me!

I'm mocking Stephenie Myer with gusto and I demand much in the way of Extra Ice Mints, blue Jones soda-the proverbial mana potion for my ramblings with the strawberry lime variety being my health poultice for when I collaspe face first on the keyboard at stupid o' clock and wake up with QWERTY stamped on my forehead-and I want payment for my thankless job.

Sarcasm- just one of many sexy and exciting services I offer. Also, splorfling.

Just wanted to take you through the formings of this fiction in a sort of bizarro world piss-take on Myerlurk's herp-a-derp authoress notes where she gives everyone a Volvo and mind-rapes them out of hopeless devotion.

With her _mind._

Mind bullets and yaks.

It's telekinesis, Jen, but not as we know it. See what I did there? You just sporfled into your coffee.

'Sporfle/Splorfle' is a word.

It is one single word uttered constantly by Jen in that American verb-queefing love of slang that I expanded into a whole silly, fun parody of scene-kid language that doesn't really need an explainitory glossary half because this monster is big enough already and the other half being is that it's just made up words for those wordless little noises and quirks that defie all defination and countless hours of Wiki-crawling so I'll make it snappy.

Anyways.

Splorfling.

From the the language set down over a nine year period of trans-Atlanic snickering called in Pig Latin:

Splorfus Prepodinkadumderp A Doodley Derp.

(Spluh-lore-fuss Pree-pod-dink-ah-dumb-der-ip Ahh Doo-duh-lee Dur-up ) or Snarkus Majora to be quick and non-bewildering.

Prounounced "Spuh-lore-fuh-ling". Or "Spur-fer-lang-aye" if you're much adiue aboot Canada, eh?

It means "_to simultaniously snort, chuckle, brain-fart and squee all at once in one delectable, unique sound uttered by those with joy in their hearts and the lobotomised or criminally insane_."

Off shots flash-mob vocabby-wabbs:

To splorfle: I'm about to splorfle: (spu-lore-full)

Past Tense: I just totally splorfled! (spu-lore-full-duh)

Abbrieviations: I totally need to splorf! (spu-lore-oof)

I've just been royally splorfed! (spu-lore-fud)

Also: splorf, splert, snerk, snark, snarkle-derp, derply-snark and the word 'snick' which is a non-legally threatening Wolverine noise and also the sound utilized when you need to ventilate a ho.

With an emery board of some discription.

Incidentally, Emery Board happens to be Emery on a surfboard, not just a contraption for staging a really tepid jail-break but having fabulous nails whilst doing it.

Derp!

I totally went Bill Bailey-esque Tolkenesey Snarkus on your ass there. Take that, you stuck up sparkle-derpy knife-ears! I love making up derply languages for reason other than to sit queitly in the corner giggling like Homer Simpson whilst partaking in some bait-and-switch fun with his Stonecutter compatriots.

Actually, waiiiit... Elvish is really Ye Olde Gaelic with some made-ups, ergo it's poncy Irish.

I... I totally splorfled like a fountain that time.

Did you?

You're doing it right now, aren't you, Jen? Yay! Subtle but harmless mind control!

My silly American soul sister from another mister, co-creator and first oratoring Grand Poobah of Snarkus Majora and purvayor of all things Yankee-doodle-dandy. You were the main source of inspiration for many facets of Stateside piss-ripping in contrast to the rib-ticklers we regularly dork out to and I adore you utterly for that.

I hope this random, shambling mess of a fiction gives you many hours of squees and splorfles and helps distract you from the hoardes of marauding Mexicans that make all talk of your life's work to bring down a certain fast-food chain from the inside out so hileriously entertaining.

You are a living, breathing, bitch-tastic embodiment of Randal Graves.

Only you have a front butt. And what a front-butt it is for you're no doubt queefing from sporfle overdose. Quiet, the Mexicans can hear you!

My god, the Mexicans.

Someone call Danny Trejo, Bruce Campbell, Chuck Norris and Techno Viking.

I want to video tape that epic siege that's sure to unfold when you finally pull a Bronson and go postal.

It will be a rampaging, rip-snorting, rollicking, tale of a renegade retail/ fast-food attendent who lives out the dream of all disguntled franchise works and just has enough of those motherloving Mexicans (no offense, for Mexicans invented fajitas, borritos and Carlos Santana amongst many other fantastic musicians that shaped my formative years and that makes them amazing in my eyes) in this motherloving fast food joint.

The Rick-Roll as a soundtrack to the mayhem.

I'd call it 'McDeath'and everyone will recite their lines in Ye Olde Shakesperian English.

To quote our own exponentally cooler, mutually worshipped, sparkly, shiney haired god of nonsensical battle tactics, it will be, in a word:

_Glorious._

That word, Jen, along with sporfle and all its' many offsets, is my chagrin.

And you have never once in a near decade of love, time and tenderness, given me so much as a molecule of it.

The sun shines out of your front-butt.

You are the Sunday in every week, my frost-covered lamp-post in the middle of a winter that's colder than a mother-in-law's kiss. I hope this makes up for my having missed your birthday.

Twenty fucking seven.

You mad ol' queefy queen.

_**Lyrical Waxing On The Writing Process:**_

This idea was majorily mandingus-y sparked by a conversation with my Twiharding Team Edward/ Sparklefail supporting plebby electric hamster loving cousins -specificly Kazy, who is now legally old enough to herp-a-derp and can form an honest, well-rounded and coherent opinion that doesn't consist of screaming "Edward! I'll have your sparkle babies!" everytime she see Fugly McFootface on the tube.

I fear for your sisters, babe.

Truely.

I'm inwardly Patrick Stuard strenght double face-palming for Ashers and Gucci Gouche as I type.

They're lost to the glittering taint.

Your insightful views on the comparisions and stark, ludicrious contrasts between Twilight and the sacred gospel law endoctrained in the Suckhead Holy Antolodgy-_Nosferatu, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview With A Vampire, _Hogan and Del Toro's balls-to-the-wall epic novella _"The Strain", _the collective works of _Christopher Lee _and_ Bela Lugosi _as well as_ Daybreakers, _the_ Underworld _sagaand millions other leech-fests good, bad and hysterically cheesy.

Your broad, educated insights belly your eighteen short years on this accursed mudball and they instilled in me a spark of hope for the future generations of vampire fangirls.

Our fire-side discussions on how we might have improved on the books gave me tons of plot bunnies. Thank you for being so patient with my defiantly twenty twopy-two cougary Pedowolfing over Taylor Uber Adorkable Mashmelllowy Lautner fur-faggotry and sitting through countless reruns of _An American Werewolf In London_ and _Rise Of The Lycans_ respectively, though I still maintain my stance that Aro/ Michael Sheen could play a mute retarded Zhu Zhu hamster and I'd still watch him for he is glorious and needs his own musical, zombie Ian Dury-scored extravaganza called _Paint Dear Aro's Wagon In The Blood Of Ten Thousand Virgins for _ was the greatest thing ever after sexy, angry Jacob in New Poon.

Oh my god, that's the title of the porno cut of the Canon!Movie!

I'd watch that.

So long as Billy Black is played by Ron Jeremy, Jacob by a retarded but springy Alaskan Marmatute, Stevie Wonder does the soundtrack and everyone, even the dancing transexual Klu Klux Spam Volturkey chorus line has a handle-bar mustashe and a rainbow afro chest rug. And Michael Sheen duel-roling as Aro and Lucien respectfully in a homo-erotic dynamo of _Guy Love_.

And so I madee veryone atomicly uber nine-thousanded delux action combo sporfled everyone into their Brain Bleach bevies!

Kazy, I put you through hell, mercilessly ripping the crap out of Edward/Sparklefail and you parried like a champ in many good natured play-fights over Yur Ma's awesome chicken wings and thus, you are a beacon of hope for a fan-base that scares me more than shuffling scanger zombies injecting me with stupidly big syringes filled with maruading pidgeons.

I shall remember you when the birds come for my shrieking, hysterical, panic- flapping soul.

I write this for you, for Jen and for all the free spirited tongue-in-ear cavity fans who take this fanfic as it is: a big steaming pile of nuclear derp with the odd diamond among the dirt clumps, the roach tails, spent corns yrup squibbies and discarded contraceptive pill blister packs that the Moron cut forgot

You all make me shit Zhu Zhu hamsters with glee and hope for the future leech loving cougaring Pedowolfing nutters and I dedicate this fiction to you lovely peeps.

So here's my own attempt at re-imagining the concept.

Changes have been made.

Back stories have been altered, beefed up, trimmed at the edges or tossed aside completely in place of plot-lines more logical. (To me, anyways...) We've even got a smack of Celtic mythology for Jen 'cause she trips balls over it and she's up with this sort of thing along with my own Spaced-esque cinematic Battle Royal On Otaku Balls with wolfie wet dream assault course pack den!

Up with is sort of ludicrious mayhem!

This is an ecumenical matter, Mother Cice!

Please be aware that my alligence rests staunchly (as if it weren't woefully obvious) in the Team Jacob/ Tyler's Van camp and I am able to poke fun at said fandom.

If you take an altogether more serious, stick-up-the-arse, few-sandmichs- short-of a picnic view then that's fair enough but please don't reinforce my view that humanity is rapidly devolving into organisms with nary a brain-cell between them.

Still, my intention is not to piss off the fandom or incurr the wrath of the more sinester side though I may laugh like a drain at their more herpy-derpy and tongue-in-cheek offerings. Case in point? The Sparkle Wand Vibrator! If I were a rich dork, I'm buying four for the uber-lulz and giving them to my jail-bait cousins just to inflict apocolyptic levels of shame and hilerity.

My stance is snark-tastic but I don't begrudge the Twihards. I write only to offer an alternative to those who may've felt somewhat unfufilled by the glaring lack of latent teenage tendencies towards sex, drugs and rock'n' roll that, in my eyes, made the book series fall short.

Also: Pedowolf and Renesmee.

Pedowolf.

And.

Fucking.

Renesmee.

I have never double face-palmed so hard in my fucking life.

I _had_ to write a rebuttal if only to wipe clean the slate of the brutal destruction of Jacob's light, frothy and profoundly interesting character-one of a microcity of plotlines I found whilst sifting the sparkly ashes through fine-count muslin before I all but went John Wayne Gacy on Myer'lurk's Pizza The Hutz-ian ass for ruining the one character that stayed with me (Alice and Charlie aside) long after I punted _Breaking The Genre _out the window and ran screaming down the street in my Three Wolves Moon t-shirt giving Manniquin Skywalker a run for his money with a bereft howl of "Noooooooooooooooooooo!" at the wolf moon rising oh-so-appropriately.

Incidently, quick horrifying mental image for you all:

Kristen Stuart/Steward/ Stew-Derp and Hayden Christensen have a baby.

Enjoy the nightmares of seeing them coo over a solid block of wood swathed in a Babygro. Shitting wood-chips.

This is just a bit of fun, after all. Again, we Irish love a good roast. Especially with taters and gravy.

Sweet, sweet guh-ray-veh.

Bam.

Long live the D.O.O.P! Insert Klawplak/Apology Dance here.

I also must apologize to any Americans, natives or otherwise reading this. I'm sorry to say that unless Jen might one day break out the dry cock, I do not know any braves, Native American or otherwise and since I've never been to the States- not for want of trying with huge slingshots and wind-up hamster zombie hoard overloading- I'm going strictly by what I've gleamed from t'internet, books (yes, folks , _books!_ I'm so retro!) television and the good-natured ramblings of my long-time militant Liberal Pagan false-sense-of-security envoking soft-spoken Bunson Honeydew to my squeaking Beaker who happily indulges my wide-eyed wonderment over this strange and mythical land.

Absolutely _no buzzkillington_ offense is intented. Spirited cheek pinches and tummy raspberries, certainly. It's just a grand ol' piss take, in so many twee and giggly ways.

Incidently, I have to say I had my own personal dream cast in my head for this fiction when I was writing it. I've seen the movies and most parts seem to match the nazi-fail of the books save for the odd exception but just for shits and giggles, I have a cast list I might post up for the hell of it sometime after this gets finished in regards to my stupidly longwinded Myerlerk Mockery Opus

!Please be aware that I've put **way** too much thought into said cast list and actually couldn't write this without first sorting through my Head!Cannon.

Curse my cinematic approach to writing in first-person perspective! I shake my fist at my Aspergerian tendencies to speak in pop cultural analogies and silly, silly voices! Huhh-weeeeee!

Also, this fiction has a soundtrack as I always listen to music as I work and often at times find inspiration in a plethora of eccleftic sounds as varied in genre, specturm and decade as Abba to Alien Ant Far, Ian Dury to Dethlokk and Led Zepplin to ZZ Top to name but tens of thousands.

I'm a firm believer that every novella, every fiction, every work of art and creativity, even poetry, prose and song itself has a story buried within, instrumenal or otherwise and whilst some might scoff at the overt slew of musical cues and pop culture peppering this bloated, inflated mess of self-indulgent fan-fapping/ Live Leech Lycan healing electro-pop bonged up hippyfest, it's how I see the world as a whole:

As one big, shaky-cam extravaganza with an off-beat soundtrack, a cast of millions of fun, quirky and at times very odd people that defies conventions of ratings and genre.

And so, I give you _**Crimson Moon.**_

I was gonna go with the rather awesome Red Dawn-eque paddywackery title of Emerald Moon on account of the rampaging popper insanity about to get loco, ese!

I give you an alternative to the restrained scribbles of a legally retarded Moron Myerluck in need of a jolly good frag-grenading with trippers and head-shot 300-style stupidly high blood pressure-spurting arching ropes of viscarial derp..

Just call me Punzer McShockerfist MaGee!

_Read this in too-Munterzilla-propotiony fagalisicous-to-function zinger god Chatty Man Alan Carr's voice:_

Myerlurk Moron. Ohhhh, laaawd. Not to be confused with Mormon which, incidentally whilst Myerlurk is one, she's the one nobody talks about. The proverbial elephant in the room in many, many ways.

Oh, no she di-int! Snap.

Anyways, you've stuck with me up to now, hopefully tickled well and truely green by now and thus, you shall be rewarded. I hope you thought it was a great deal more fun and interactive and inspired than what Maruding Moranic Myerlurk offered.

Take it as the sexy snerk hard R _Allied Athiest Eejitsi League Iceberger Ball_s lampooner cut accompanient as it derives elements of all four books.

Take it as an unsanctioned bizarro-world sequel where teens smoke pot and hump like pornstars.

Take it as what I set out to make it as: A silly yet action packed, snarky dialogue-heavy romp through the Dublin mountains, filled with wolfhounds, baldy hippie girls and hairy-ass asschabbing brass bollock bawls-to-the-walls-action-sex-comedy-with-epic-Punzer MacShockerfist-atonic-lolz.

To put it simply:

Take it with just a pinch of Lucky Charm dust and crack.

Or Crystal Death Uber-Betes joining ritual-approved Grey Muttzer Dog Warden mooted candyfloss epic diabeatus death juice of of mucho gargente tooty root root yummzers.

Simple, Myerlurk proof recipe:

Strawberry Mickey Finns for that omnious tainty Ferleden Battle MankiniDuncan approved berry aftertaste. Multicoloured little tubs of cotton wad-sized candy floss to be dissolved in the strawberry liquor to form a clumpy, darkspawny mess with proper sugar lump consistancy in a ration of about two cups worth per initiate followed a ridiculously liberal metric fuck-ton of white candyfloss cream soda Jones cola until you get a watery, paintstrippingly sugary mess that'll have you tripping balls for hours of fun until the mother of all crashes wth a danger edge fifty-fifty chance of death by Atomic Diabetes.

I hope you enjoy.

I love feedback and props, negetive as well as positive so feed my ego. At least I'm open about having one!

Any comments or queries would be greatly appreciated and met with hamsters, free beer, sparkly dildos and all other manner of wanton deviant delights not sanctioned by the world's largest Pedobear protection ring.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter.

Replace it with a fistful of splorfle.

And now, what you've been patiently (or simply scrolled past for, finicky munter!) waiting for:

Dun-dun-dada-dun-dun-daaa-duuuuuuuuuun!

Enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

**Crimson Moon**

**A Twilight Re-Imaginging**

**By Sarah Maguire**

**(The Anti- Myer)**

**Prologue**

_Of all the things that shape our lives, only two things are one-hundred percent certain:_

_Taxes will sneak up on you, take you by surprise wretchedly hard in the arse and then never call you again after robbing you of both dime and dignity._

_The second thing?_

_That death is all around us._

_More to the point, it touches us all like a particular amourous octupus, tenticles of doom and despair winding around all aspects of life until its' deep black ink consumes everything in its' wake._

_My first brush with death?_

_The day of my birth. _

_I'm not saying I'm blessed with total recall, that I can remember my very own arrival into this crazy, messed up universe but from the moment I entered society, it's been downhill ever since._

_My mother was the first victim._

_Apparently, she was so eager to meet little ol' me that her brain exploded. Okay, that...yeeaaah, that __**might **__be an exaggeration- she had an anuerysm whilst in the process of evicting me from my cosy, underwater home of the last nine months._

_Then, when I was six years old, I was the only one to walk away partially singed and covered in ash but otherwise miraculously unscathed from a raging fire in a downtown Forks/ Washington border apartment complex that killed a hundred and fifty-eight people including my proud, NRA card-carrying Texas-born father, my overly Botoxed alarmingly jail-baiting chain-smoking bimbo of a trophy step-mother and my unborn half sibling of indeterminate gende r whose presence wasn't found until they performed the auto._

_Even with my furative, childish young mind, hoped it was a he-be-she-be when they told me I lossed my "ickle sibby"._

_That would've been a sight to behold. _

_A wee brother and a wee sister all rolled into one fabulous package! Still, had it been born mid-inferno if the pretensiously named 78% plastic thing called Cynthia tried to dampen the flames with her waters, it probably would've shrivelled up like a Sea Monkey left in the sun too long._

_Sorry I'm being morbid but laughter's the best medicine when it comes to shouldering sins and tragedy._

_People often ask me how, after they hear my story, I can go on living after experiencing such trauma at so tender an age._

_Simple, really._

_When you've been touched by Lucifer, angel of death twice in your lifetime, the shroud is pulled back and Death himself is revealed to be a small squealing toddler riding a trike. _

_With My Little Pony decal despite the fact. _

_I got careless._

_Reckless._

_I stood face to face with death itself and I laughed at it. _

_Little did I know._

_Karma has a deliciously twisted sense of humour..._

At this stage of my life, I should be used to onslaughts of rain.

Eleven years living a quiet but mischief-minded existence in a small, sleepy commuter village of little consequence in Tallaght-a self contained police state likened to Beiruit in springtime, a dubious tour-de-force of it's very own lying deep in the outer fringes, the wilds boonies of Dublin, was more than long enough to grow accustomed to dirty great sheets of water lashing against the windows.

Yet as the plane taxied up the runway, I felt ill at ease at the sight of the dreary weather beyond the porthole. I'd only just gotten free of one wet, muddy country that was like being trapped forever in a really crap episode of The Twilight Zone, for fecksake...!

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Forks International Airport. Please ensure you have all your belongings on your person and exit the plane in an orderly fashion..." the tannoy droned, the pilot's voice disorted and garbled as it filtered through the cabin, all but lost over the low din of passengers shuffling like really low budge zombie-insomniacs towards the door.

Urrrrrrrgh.

Jet laaaaaaag.

Coffeeeeee.

Ruuuuurrrrrr!

Getting up from the cramped seat I had forced myself into not seven-odd hours earlier, the blood rushed back to my legs with a force so swift I almost fell bony arse over non-existent tits into the path of a flock of nuns.

Wait, what's the collective word for nun?

A cult of nuns?

Eh, it's all one big grand scam so it sounds about right...

Argle!

Charlie horse. Ow.

With a grimace, I pushed through the ache and reached for my overheads. There wasn't much to carry- just a worn out but sentimentally priceless faded denium handbag I got for the princely sum of €10 during a trip to Italy when I was eight. It consisted largely of different sized pockets stitched together and could hold a million and one things so it was one of my constant companions.

I also had a beige and chocolate-hemmed canvas satchel I stitched up myself in a fit of boredom one day, encumbered seams fit to burst with a Mac-In-A-Sack, my cinderblock-weighted school-books and several chunky boxsets filled with tales of horror, gore and Christoper Lee's hammy acting.

My few last earthly possessions.

It had been Smoky, AKA my maternal grandfather Jim Sweeney who encouraged me to go.

"_A caged bird'll never sing_." he said in his rich, lyrical accent, a finger gnarled with premature age (he's barely sixty) and rhumatism from a life spent cultivating organic hemp for some marginally famous natural soap company, reeking to high heaven of the strange, low-grade psuedo-ammonia smell of potent salivia extract and the horse manure he fed the plants with, jabbing at the stack of chicken-scrawl letters in my hand.

I splorfled over my decision.

It had long been a dream of mine to return to the States, to see the bright lights of New York and hawk a loogie off the top of the Empire State building, hopefully hitting Alicia fucking Keys and Jay fucking Z.

We _get_ it! You're patriotic! Change the record, puh-lease! Great tune and all but over played to death on the flight over to alledgedly booast morale that was hampered by the weather.

How I hoped they'd treat us to a bit of shlocky, animated Howard Stern but alas, poor _Shlocker_, I knew him not to blast away the repugent stench of a flying tin-can filled with the collective farts and excretionary bodily functions of a hundred-odd people.

Emphasis on _odd._

I wanted to swim with dolphins and pick fresh-as-it-gets oranges clean off the tree in a Floridian orchard, bet on black and loose a small but serious amount of dosh in Vegas, fuck all night and party all day in San Francisco with a rainbow coloured flash-mob of flamboyent transvestites to the incredible kitschy hair-rock stylings of Steel freakin' Panther.

The American dream of all bored, jaded teenagers trapped in a backwater town enamoured by the so-crazy-they're-true stories of a perma-bonged old hippy.

When my small but innovative school which was A Learn Together seculuar one that nearly caused my grandmother to shit a literal brick when I staunchly refused to wear the fugly-assed uniforms of the God Squad-run philosophical prison further up the village started branching out, I was among the first people to jump at anything remotely Yanky-doodle-dandy, the big faux Goth-Loli pleb that I was.

If it meant an escape from militant bible-bashing between 9am and 3pm four days a week (Whoot! Three day weekends!), I was more than happy to spent two hours on a train into the city and get up at ridiculously early-o'clock to catch it.

They were offering places on an exchange program with one in Forks due to a Native American philosophy class that I tripped balls over and I jumped at the chance to realise my dream, only to find that it wasn't quite what I had envisioned and didn't_ actually_ _physically_ entail me going to America.

I am Lex's Crushed Childhood Dream but it was soon made up for in so many wonderful ways so methinks karma had other plans in store for little old me...

My inheritence had yet to come through but eleven years spent blissfully ignoring screaming snot-nosed brats for twenty five quid an hour (I'm a lot of things but cheap a'int one of them) for as long as the batteries in my tape and subsequent eBay-salvaged vintage music players held out, and after sacrificing most of my admitedly near non-existent social life until I was on the edge of sixteen, it all added up bit by bit and I had the very tidy and respectable crux of €10,000 resting in a special account that stopped me from going utterly mad with a quarterly limit in the 1,000 maxus zone.

I was a woman on a mission but I'd yet to _truely _kick it up a smidge.

I had been paired with Jacob "Howlin' Wolf" Black as my "_speshul_ _native American fwiend from a twibe on der Forks Reserve who worshipped a wolf totum, herp-a-deeerp!_" back when I'd just turned fifteen, purely by chance.

Names out of a hat and all that.

The stars must've aligned because out of all the boys who teased me mercilessly in those formative years of my culture-shocked, fish-out-of-water youth, he was the only one who could dissolve the anger and blast away the social stigma of having been raised by my grampies in the boonies by being refreshingly charming and sardonic for a fourtheen year old.

All the boys in Dublin, for the most part, made me cry tears of shame and anguish.

Jacob made me cry with laughter and oh, how I'd live for Friday mornings, when his weekly letters would arrive and I'd all but lunge at our impossibly humble and lovely closet-case Postie John-Joe "Shabbadoo" MacFagan like a banshee until he'd swiftly learned to make our house the first in his rounds.

I shit you not about Shabbs.

Woe betide him if he misplaced a letter or package for I became the Antichrist herself, sulking childishly and acting like a junkie denied a much needed hit of my own personal form of heroin.

It's that kind of town- _The Quiet Man _meets _Children of The Corn _via_ The Island _is how I've often put it.

It's the delightfully gamez-for-the-craiczi Polish Zorbers, I'm _sure_ of it!

It's a small mecca of loveliness outside of the atomic smack fallout zone. A picturesque post-card town barely plopped on the maps any more due to being bypassed by a...well, a bypass.

_Padraig Morrs,_ it's called, named officially after Ireland's answer to Samuel L Jackson, one snake-eyed Saint Paddy but due to a rib-tickling kerfuffle owing to a dyslexic sign maker with gimpy eyesight who couldn't diferentiate our sign and that of a prankster's legendary bare-faced-cheek, he inadvertedly christened the town _Poig Ma Hoin, _which, to the great amusement of us locals and the bewilderment of unsuspecting tourists stuck in peacefull ignorence, translates roughly into "_Kiss My Hole_" in the ol' Oirish.

I bray like a _donkey_ every time I pass it by and it never, _ever_ gets old!

I live in the Arsehole of Tallaght, both in the literal and ironic senses considering it's the last bastion of idealic country side on a par with the glacial planes of New Zealand before you hit the outer fringes of _Drugged Up Stabitty Zombieville _and you must abandon all hope, possessions and contents of your anal cavity.

Usually the later is done involentarily once you cross the border into _No Man's Land_ and encrouch onto the line severely and starkly splicing the edge of the town's lovely, charming green lushness with creeping, gnarled thorn bushes, broken syringes and smashed Corona bottle-strewn isolationist concrete, shuffling ghouls in shell-suits, riduculous scummy 'tashes and Muppet Mobiles (sadly not in the epic Kermit sense) blasting the bone-chillingly haunting twanges of Tubular Bells.

The Ibiza electric funky chicken house remix of plus five million naffness.

They filmed that one brilliant scene in _28 Days Later_ where they're all trapped in the taxi in that creepy underground parking complex here.

The car-park was actually that of the local Lidls and with the wonders of the movies, they had it boxed it in in such a way so that the only view into a restricted set was to barrell up the winding stairs of the suitably craggy old abandoned mill's stocky tower and take advantage of the panoramic 360 that was like standing atop the black tower of Isengaard in the summer, unholy shambing Mordor on your door-step.

The buzz of the shoot- which included inserts for the military encampment in which said tower was used for distance shots-put the town at the appropriate spot of 28 in a one-hundred strong tonuge-in-cheek Bizarre Magazine list of Place Where You're Most Likely To Catch Super Aids And Die After 5 Minutes.

The number two spot was a particularly post-apocolyptic sounding wasteland ghetto of Africa that was facing the so called final, last resort solution of "rezoning" due to the virus rumoured to have gone airborne, which is to say in conspiracy speak: zombie Holocaust.

The number one spot was Katie Price's lingerie drawer.

I'll take a horrible death of my peeling flesh vapourizing instantaniously over gagging on a plastic Tangoed munter's vaginal cheese stench. Give my brains to the marauding hoard for they are needy.

I love my zombies and I have very squishy, tenderloin brains.

Incidentally, I had nothing but bemused, mocking mirth towards the grand high master of Super Aids.

Shambollocka Price was the spitting image of my step-mother Cynthia Milan-Pickle-do-Hickey or whatever the fuck her name was.

It was one of those ludicrous monikers only LA airheads with more money than brains could have, only Cynthia's watermelon-smashing (her party trick and the only truely unique thing about her amid the fakeness), Jessica Rabbit-approved cartoon tits were real and huge as my love of survivalist horror situations, though the same couldn't be said of her common sense and feel for personal safety for it was her falling asleep after an inconsiderate cheeky cigarette that set off the whole sorry chain of events that pegged me as an orphan.

On the subject, I'm allergic to the smell of nicotine. Strangely, however, the reefer smoke seems to nullify my respiratory plight.

Either that or I get too baked on second-hand Berry Bomb smoke to really give a shite...

I hated that Skelator-faced whore even before she melted like the Botox-Enhance Dizzy Bitch of the East Coast in a shrieking tower of flames right before my big doe-eyes.

She made Michael Jackson look like the poster child for growing old gracefully. I can't imagine my dad ever ridin' her into battle, much less the horrifying alternative...

I should be seven shades of traumasized from that night but mercifully, I was already densitized even at that age thanks to vague memories of sharing my shlock allienge with the faceless blur that acts as a placemat in what I guess are long-surpressed memories of my father.

The only trait I can remember clearly is that my dad Chuck "Norris" Makenzie had wild, untamed Seventies Ted Nugent metal hair and a fondness for the same kind of head-gear.

That's about it.

Oh, well. I'm just happy to be alive and snerking so I don't put much weight in thoughts of that night.

Annnnyways, 28 Days Later.

One of my all-time favourite movies ever, ever, ever times infinity and a smidge.

A rare gem in a sea of predictable, contrived crap.

I shook Cillian Murphy's hand and he cuddled me after we ran into each other following a chance meeting during one of my forthnightly trots up to the old mill with Ol' Painless.

He' was positively manorexic in stature due to the overall aesthetics in regards to the movie and I commended his stellar attention to detail whilst he was like a kid at Christmas, wantonly fondling my modified hybrid paintball-firing Aersoft sniper rifle and rampaging like a mad yoke, expending a full magazine of blood-filled pustules on the by now very pissed-but-too-blitzed-to-care shuffle of junkies.

I was offered a blink-or-you'll-miss part in being one of several people shooting Brendan Gleeson off-screen during his big death in the military outpost for the good-natured craic of things but by then, the primary director's unit had moved overseas to one of those big purpose-built studios in England where they normally film Bond movies (Roger Moore rules all) and the distance turned out too restrictive on account of school commitments.

I could've wept but fortunately, it was all 'round to the pub for convalescence and cheap brews on the night before the crew pulled out to go film the _proper_ action and shit. Couldn't understand for the life of me why when we had tons of abandoned tower blocks filled with home-grown dizzy zombies to blow up for no money at all on our very doorstep but contracts, y'know.

Paper-work. Bleh.

Cillian (Killer to me he'll eternally be) kept sneaking me cheeky half-pints of cider all night to thank for the paint-balling madness and I wound up next day in school woefully hung over but happy as a swine in fecal matter over my bitchin' bragging rights.

It paid to be the granddaughter of the town's only legit hemp farmer with shenanagans on the side.

But keep that wee nugget _private_- Smoky only ever sells once in a month of blue snow if even that.

Not for fear of losing his business licence(though that is a real worry) but that he's too damn stubborn about sharing the knockout stuff unless someone keeps him in Beamish all night without wanting pints in return.

He could be scabby like that sometimes but only when it came to his special 'brownies'.

He never sold cut stuff.

Just diguised in baked goods so if, for what ever reasons considering he had a perfectly legit permit and everything was kosher, if we were raided, he could quickly swallow his stash and be too baked to care about being arrested.

It was something picked up whilst part-time roadying for the surviving members of Skynyrd when they breezed into Dublin for a classic rock festibal one summer when I was about eleven.

I've yet to see him under the throws of a handful of the elepjant-grade stuff but when he's high, he's so used to the state that he can't function without at least one brownie a day and whilst he keeps trim by plowing all day, he has a cake belly that gives him a jolly stoner Santa appearence.

Everyone flocked to us.

Strangely enough, we never had any trouble from the junkies ourselves.

Guess they didn't like the hassle of grinding their own leaves and prefered to posion themselves with Zombie Christ knows what.

Smoky had Brendan Gleeson back to our gaff for a night-cap but I never saw him all night, travesty as it were but Smoky later told me he'd slipped The General himself some of the really jaw-droppingly potent stuff he grew in his personal stash and the two were grooving to the crazy ol' hippy's Thin Lizzy set-list long into the wee hours of the night, the timeless licks of _"The Boys Are Back In Town"_ permenating the druggy haze that mingled with the mist rolling off the mountains.

I love my childhood, eventful and unpredictably bohemian as it was.

So, anyway the budget for this shoot was maybe €100 at a stretch for the max-capicity SD card in a high-grade mobile phone shot by fearless but disarmingly soft-spoken Shabbs himself 'cause he had hands steadier than any dollies and they wanted a more guerrilla style so John-Joe Shabbadoo and meself gleefully Xeroxed fliers yelling '_Free Smack and Bulmers'_ to make it a cheap-ass shoot, giving it that lovely, gritted low-budge cinematography.

I was among the many bemused onlookers watching from the top of the relative safety of the old mill that looked over the wholeof the village slap-bang in the middle of all this happy madness.

The whole scene was actually all filmed in a series of single takes at twelve noon on a number o' muggy-if you'll pardon the pun- early afternoons after the methadone clinics shut up for lunch.

Ahh, good times!

I still have a photograph taking pride of place on my dresser of myself, Smoky, Cillian, and The General all covered in corn-syrup and branishing squibby-liscious blood cannon gun props though mine was the most epic as it was an Aersoft, as Mental Murphy was so want to seethe green with envy over it.

I gave him the name of the website I ordered it from and he promised me we'd stage a humdinger of a mock battle in Phoenix Park the next time he hit up Dublin.

Lovely, affable chap. I was far too awe-struck by The General's presence to say anything more than "Spudoinkle!" but on the last day before they all left for more bloodier pastures, I somehow managed to dumbly state how incredibly smooth his face was out of the spirit gum and Max Factor caking.

He grinned at me, told me I made his month and crushed me in a bear-hug before saying my gramps was a diamond geezer and he'd be back to jam again first opening in his hectic schedule.

I pull it out when I'm feeling particularly smug and bastardly sometimes but otherwise, I for the most part conceal the phone numbers on the back of that photo from my few aquintences when they come calling.

They've yet to call me back but I'm non-plused.

Me and Mental Murphy will always have the old mill.

Ahh. Me first kiss an' all.

Covered in ketchup and corn-starch.

I'm a classy gal!

This was just one of many incidents, largely due to Smoky's knack for charming everyone and their dog with his laid back outlook on life. Yet, whilst my granmother tolerated his herbalism life credo with typical dry and droll cyncism having put up with it for fourty-something years, she became a whole other person when she became his GILF- as in G for Groupie rather than Granny- as she accompanied him to gigs.

She was 79 years old, a ballachy old cougar with a 59 year old man-child husband who still dragged her out to go ballroom dancing up in the one swishy antique hotel about a half hour's walk into town and I'd regularly see them walking hand in hand on their way back, the stars bright in both their eyes and no words between them.

Smoky should be, on paper, Edith's complete and polor opposite. They should be hating each other for their differences yet they worked so well together, they were so lovey-dovey with a vivid yet smouldering telekentic-like energy between them that I often found myself coloured pine-green with envy over it.

Yet, when it came to the subject of how they met, Edith was playfully, coitishly Mount Fuji- somewhat inaccessable, a volcano of a woman who could flip out over the slightest things when sober but appeared to have a softness, a youthful vigour around her when she came back from the dances and she would glow.

It's a cliche, sure, but feck it, if it wasn't true that they were obviously soul mates.

She'd cast me a fluttering eyelash whenever I'd enquire, looking achingly hip in her vintage flapper dresses that swayed with each tiny movement, the rindstones gleaming in the lamp light as I took my usual place laid on my belly on the bed she shared with him, my legs crossed over my head and hands propping my face as I dreamily watched her apply a very light sweep of topas dust across her eternally young eyes.

They were vivid green, a sparkling emerald shade to my subdued olive tone and when she was gearing up for a good ol-fashioned bit of shake, rattle and roll as they got ready on alternating Saturday nights to go cut some moves across the ballroom up at the old Rockwell joint, I would be privy to the rarest side of her multi-faceted persona.

On weekdays, she was a hard-ass.

She was stubburn, droll, a touch intense with her old time principals and a hellava ball buster in the very rare occasions I deliberatly stepped out of line when we clashed over the ever looming shadows of religion and morality.

It wasn't that I was overtly blasphemous around her- I was respectfully cheeky, always, every shade of my mother as she'd be so want to point out and she had long instilled me with the notion that if I ran my mouth off without ryhme or reason, she wouldn't bat an eyelid at giving me a firm but restrained smack on it and I commended her for it.

If Tallaght had more wives, more grannies, more mothers, sisters, daughters, aunties, guardians and legal custodians not afraid to put the fear of their chosen deity into their collective hellspawns offsprings, perhaps then we wouldn't be using it as a cheap back-drop for survivalist zombie movies starring a motley gang of rascals that I likened to an extended family of really lucky cousins.

If only for my memories, I was almost proud of the fact I lived in an arse crack.

Unlike that horrid drug that was bringing my home turf to it's very knees, my all-time perfect high was one of the rare '_life_' varieties and despite the gloomy view across the horizon, it was so addictive, so all-encompassing that to miss even a single moment of mine and Jacob's stupidly expensive but spirited long-distence phone calls on the Saturday nights when I'd use my grampies' date nights to discuss with him things of a non-kosher nature, I would live for the peels of laughter rasping tinny from the reciever safe in the knowlege that this was as good as it gets.

We'd chat about everything we couldn't do without having me threatened with a mouthful of dish-washing soap.

Mercifully, it was a threat that never came to fruitation but you didn't cross a tiny ex-Convent teacher-turned-hippy-turned-born-again-Catholic such as my granny and expect to get away without at least the wilies on you.

Jake and I would chew the fat over all and nothing, covering such comedicly silly little blasphemous things like Buddy Christ,which Edith hated the sight of with almost flamboyently theatrical fervour and on several occasions, tried to sneak off and burn my deluxe signed copy of _Dogma_ I got off the website with the handwritten thank you note from Silent Bob himself.

After gently wearing down her defenses with Smoky saying to keep an open mind and have your eyes opened, I managed to get her to watch it through and through and she laughed like a drain until her make-up smugded down her face and she could hardly breathe from the high-pitched, child-like frenzied giggles rumbling in her tiny chest to make her sound less than a quarter of her very respectable eight decades.

Once, I asked her if she had any reservations about Jacob and I, about our closeness and commanradery in arms.

What followed was a droll, enlightening yet stilted conversation on account of the generational gap in morals that was always a bone of contention between us.

We had a jolly aul chin-wag in the cosy privacy of the art-deco, roaring Twenties-themed walls of her bedroom on the highest floor of the barn conversion, as we always did whenever I was feeling some lingering remnants of Catholic guilt over being all pally with a "_dashing gentleman suiter"_ as Edith had said in the soft, disarmingly sweet soprano of her often brash-yet-poetic accent.

We regularly clashed over my outward appearence and whilst she had come round somewhat at a percentage of, let's say fourty-odd percent to most of my quirky aestethic charm, the main pink mohawked elephant in the room was my hair and she rued my metamorphisis at first, lamenting the loss of my lovely head of "_God given chestnut pin-curl waves"_, giving me the silent treatment for a week whilst she openly wept when I past her room on the landing en-route to the jacks, mourning the fact she would never again know the simply joy of French plaiting my hair before she sent me on my way into a day of scraped knees and blackberry picking.

I tried to instil reason, I'm still me underneath and that she would'nt even miss it as it got shorter and shorter in stages, not so much to break myself in but out of sympathy for the silly aul' bat until I strolled in with my current look and she just rolled her eyes dramaticly, sighing with a theatrical flare that would've made my late aunt Jo-Jo giddy with mirth.

In classic Edith Gore-Sweeney manner she came out with a diatribe so epic it was all over Overheard In Dublin not twenty minutes later once I'd peeled myself from the belly-clutching foetal position I'd adopted on the floor, convulsing with laughter as I lost all semblance of bladder control.

"Ohhh, that _Black_ yunfella came inta yer loife at the _best _o' time, Sandy!"

She was the only one who called me that, having desired to name me Sandra in honor of one of her own dance-hall mates who passed away at the exact same time of day I made my turbulent debut in the spackled dots of the whole valadeville three-ringed circus, illuminated by the disco ball of life.

"...Here I am, clutchin' me fooookin' rosary and havin' coniptions thinkin', _Jaysus_!" She recoiled in mock horror, feeling perky and chipper as it was a date night at the time and she let the occasional jokey blasphemy escape her in rare moments of what I've often come to suspect might be more than just a smidgen of unchecked bipolor disorder.

Either that or she's half-quare herself...

"Thanks be to t'grace o' God ye a'int a bleedin' _lezzer_!"

When she had a shot or two of Bushmills working it's way through her slight frame to limber her up for the Funky Chicken, she was almost a whole other person and I saw shades of the woman Smoky told me had once moved so elegantly unaccompanied and etheral on a cleared dance-hall floor at the end of the night at a _Dubliner's_ gig in what was then a nameless ballroom now playing home to the Sugar Club that they allighted to on birthdays, holliers or if Imelda May was giggin', swaying to music only she could hear, dancing like some pixie-cropped, feather-adorned exotic ocean plant made of silver-lime chiffon, just swaying with the endless swell of the tide.

He was hypnotised, watching her move barefoot and with her eyes closed in quiet bliss.

_A vision of divine beauty_, Smoky had sighed during chit-chat and the sporadic space brownie sessions he'd finally let me in on now that I was finally legal, thumbing his pewter and sapphire wedding band as he sighed with the look of a man who had everything he could ever hope for and more.

He wrote a heart-felt, haunting instrumental accoustic song for her that very night that sent shivers down my spine in the extremly rare times he swapped his much-malinged and well-worn frosted purple Stratocaster for a change of pace and I recall every single note of it when I close my eyes.

It was the first noise I ever heard him pluck from a guitar when I was but a wide-eyed lost child of six, freshly orphaned and uncertain of my place in life.

He called it "_A Song For A Glass Sparrow_" and he said the only women he could even come close to comparing his wife to was the tough-yet-fragile Parisian woman who shared her name, for he was soon to find she was just as fiercy, as wild and untamed yet vulnerable and delicate as Madamoselle Piaf.

He told me _La Vien Rose_ was the first dance at their wedding and she played an intergral part in forming the soundtrack of their love, encapsulating it in a haunting series of soft, lingering melodies filled with mystery for I could not speak a lick of French for the life of me and nor did I want to, fearful the songs would loose all resonance were I to understand their meaning.

I adored the story of how, in typical fairytale fashion, he caught her eye from across the room where he was packing up his guitar and assorted paraphenalia, and with a chivlary I've often mourned the loss of in modern society, he walked right over to her now only recently departed eldest sister Joni who was chaperoning-my only other reletive, my great aunt Jo-Jo who was a right lush even at eighty two and hysterically low brow to contrast her sibling- and with his hat off and back bowed low and ramrod straight, Smoky asked her if she might grant him the highest honor of his life by permitting a single waltz from my grandmother to the quiet tune she swayed to.

Joni, naturally -and I can't say I don't blame her for it, the wagon!- was miffed that he hadn't asked _her_ to dance and told him to get stuffed (as you do) and "_go ask her __**yourself**__ if you're so shaggin' keen on her, ya feckin' gobshite!"_

For ever afterwards, Jo-Jo'd have a fierce look of "_Lucky fecker_!" on her face when she eyed her sister and her brother-in-law occasionally twirling around the kitchen to some Sinatra or one glorious day when the planets lined up and Edith actually liked something out of my own musical galaxy-spanning collection other than the mainstream ninties pop and _Weird Al_: a certain song by _The Ink Spots_ that had me quivering with happy shivers at the combination of all that I held so dear in the world coming together as one.

And Jo-Jo (or Muggins as I called her when she sulked, which was often given her childlike nature), sitting there looking utterly left out and surly, spitting blood with ill-disguised jealous rage in her mint green eyes.

Ohhhh, Jo-Jo.

You _mentalist!_

Whenever I pass by that hysterical sign in my home town- the one you dubbed _The Hole_ when I regalled you with my Fallout fangasming and filling you in on my progress, I'll always think of how you were tickled magenta by it every time you came to visit, listening to me gab with gusto and witty, wry one-liners and how you'd help me with the fiddly bits in the back when I was trimming my undercuts and subsequent fades, mohawks and whatnot over two short but colourful years.

I'll always cherish how you called me Peacock or Cammie Chameleon and how you even paid for the secret tattoo on my left ankle of an vibrant trail of Pacman and Ghosties circling the limb when I turned not-so-sweet sixteen and went off the rails a bit- the one that I go to great lenghts to disguise from your staunchly anti-ink sister.

Wakka feckin' wakka, you crazy old wagon!

And so the story went, Ol' Smoky, being a shy, sheltered chap from the much more quiet and rural north of Dublin asked her to dance. Edith eventually told me, titting adorably in of her upswings that when she saw the twinkle in his curiously albino blue eyes, she felt utterly in love with him and, with a mirth echoing her eternally vorcarious sister, added a bubbly:

"...And it's been all _downhill_ since!"

I love a good old fashioned romance despite my outwardly rough appearence and after being regalled by the natural story telling talents of my grampies, I would lie against the purple tie-dyed sheets Smoky had so lovingly made for me and I would dream of Jacob.

I'd be in the same black and silver fringed flapper as Edith for we were the exact same measurements and she had willed all her dresses to me in one philosophical but important conversation not long after Jo-Jo died not even a full year ago.

Ohhhh, I miss that maniacally high spirited, energetic wild woman living slap-bang in heart of Gaysville, Dublin, strutting her stuff to the Donna Summer blasting out of her techno-granny lurid pink Ipod, minching it with the sparkle hoard down George's Street like the out and proud old lezzer she was so proud to scream from the hills- much to Edith's undying chagrin.

She was almost eighty-three but going on sixteen in her infectuous entusiasm for life when her weak but by no means dimunative heart finally frizzled out and she passed on peacefully in her sleep- small mercies.

I, in turn, kept her spirit alive in the bereft days following her passing by playing endless loops of Ian Dury, Madness and Crowded House, UB40, Simply Red and all the plinky-plonky not-quite pop she was forever belting along to in tuneless kareoke seasons when we drove into the city and went to less-than-PC comedy gigs together, the most recent being a session with Dara O' Briain this past Febuary not even a week before she kicked it that caused us both to to loose muscle control of our respective bladders in the throws of hysterical laughter.

It was great for her heart and she was a little fire-cracker of a woman.

I thought I couldn't bear to go to her funeral but whilst I was utterly unconsolable for the best part of a week before the funeral, I could feel her around me in certain strange phenomena like doors that opened themselves, a tickle at the back of my skull or over the tattoo on my ankle.

I knew she wasn't gone truely and so instead of mourning her at the funeral, I celebrated her life and I played her favorite songs, servering as unofficial DJ.

She was cremeted and in true Jo-Jo style, she was ushered into the cleansing fires with the wildly inappropriate twangs of _Disco Inferno._

My only regret is that she never met Jacob, off on a Shirley Valentine cruise in the Med at the time like she did every year as she owned her own little off-beat boutique in George's Street.

The high priestess of the Fag-hago sisterhood, she loved indiscriminatly and though inwardly conflicted, Edith was nothing but civil around the lesbians, drag queens, fag-hags gays, trannies and inbetweeners who sent her sister off to the great gig in the sky with an rousing acapella version of _I'm Coming Out_ complete with her adorable "gay toyboy" flatmate Leroy-or Del Boy as we called him, being a sparkly, rapier-tongued trannie geezer from Peckham-, who, though beside himself with grief still got up in his Dior sequin and perfect make-up with the rainbow lashes.

He brought the crematorium down with a heart-felt, gritty and arresting cover of Joni Mitchell's "_Both Sides Now_" which had me break out into uncontrolably shuddering sobs before he brought Joni's groove back with an inspired combination cross-over of "_I've Been To Paradise_" and "_Holiday"_ rolled into one lively, catchy track that, as soon as we'd all filed out and into our collective modes of transport to head to the wake, I was giddy again and begging 'her' to burn me a copy of the fusion album he was forever banging on about.

We swapped stories.

We laughed, we wept and we drank ridiculously ludicrious and suggestively named cocktails in Jo-Jo's honour. I even got my granny to try a Slow Hard Screw with side-splitting zingers shooting out of people's mouth's like machine gun fire.

The wake was held in her old stomping ground The George, the legendary mental asylum of camp and I had never in all my short years of trapizing into town and engaging in playful bait-and-burns with the skinhead lesbians, seen such a sparkling rainbow-filled ocean of love towards one person.

It wasn't so much a wake as the mother of all discos and as myself, Smoky, Edith and Del-Boy stumbled up to Pearse Street tanked off our trees but high on life at around three or four o' clock in the morning stumbling back to his now glaringly empty gaff for nightcaps and the fact we'd all missed the trains and last-ditch Nitelinks, even my quietly homophobic grandmother had to admit:

None us ever had so much bloody fun at a funeral.


	4. Chapter 4

Life went on, as it usually did and whilst the barn was always one of those outwardly ramshackled but cosy lean-tos, we recently gave it the full Kevin Mc Cloud treatment after Smoky far exceeded his hemp soap and head shop projections for the year and we could finally afford some badly needed restoration work as several rotting beams caused me no end of worry, poised directly over the mezzanine level bubble of squee and sentimentally valuable antiques that decorated the large, spacy room over looking the scenic parish.

Perfering to stick to the most insulated and soundproof (not to mention humungous, infinity-stretched vinyl and media filled) room in the house, I lived as a cave throll under the stairs whilst the drills of busy carpenders, decorators and sub-contractors were dulled to a tinny muffle through about six foot of solid concrete, me being positively American Suburbanite Abercromby Zombie College Rocker in my quest to plaster the walls of the cavernous basement I called home with as many Blue-Tac'd poster montages as I could get my grubby mitts on.

The phrase "_TGI Friday_" never had so much weight in a giddy, just-the-right-kind of crazy girl's life and in the very rare moments of delayed correspondance, I'd take my cherished and ironicly named Aersoft Paint "Ol' Painless"sniper rifle up to the top of the abandoned, disquieting mill tower at high noon on Saturdays after Shabb's incurred my wrath and I'd take pot-shots at the junkies until I started having too much fun and it became a regular Saturday afternoon past-time.

The cops, bless their little checked socks, never bothered me for anything other than to say I was a fucking savage shot and to demonstrate, I even did the old William Tell trick with a pineapple on Sargent Spud Harrington's crinkling old noggin', my party piece taking three tries due to Paddy's quivers of nerves but I constantly reassured him it was only a specially-made paint pellet designed to feel no more painful than a light, snapping pinch sensation coupled with a splurt of watery corn starch for that touch of class.

Before I knew it, I had corrupted the questionable morals of three rookie Guards with far too much time on their hands and a desperate longing to pop a few caps in some waster's arse and when I nervously queried to the legalities of the situation, I was reassured that there was no law against Anomonyous-style viligante justice that kept the chemical zombies off the streets without doing any more harm than ruining their track suits and keeping them away from the park.

I always respected the Guards in this town because most of them were genuinely a bit batty in that Hot Fuzz out-in-the-feral-boonies way but without the freaky cultish undertones and I was on snerking terms with three gloriously eccentric recruits.

There was an adorkably straweberry blonde, cowlicked paddy-wacking twenty year old ex-pat Simon who was fantasticly surly and had a sexy Bristolian accent with a Scottish tang that made all his imaginatively random cusswords that little bit greater. He was also insanely fond of cheesey Marmarite on toast and when he would bring the snacks as we often rotated, not knowing what to expect for the shere hell of it, he always had something to do with that disgusting black sludge.

Not that I don't like cheese or anything it's just he kept the stuff in with his uncovered lack-a-daisy rigs and his gun smelt forever and a day like Stilon. His nickname, predictably enough in our uninspired but good-natured band of miscriets was Marma-Duke, though he'd give me fantisticly withering looks in the odd moments I splorfled and called him Cheese Whizz whilst giggling helplessly.

Then, there was Nick who was a cuddly bear of a man-child Nintendo fan-boy trapped in a rolly-polly body with a russet dude-bro haircut, goatee and bunny teeth, a pureblood who lived literally next door to my nutty aunt Jo-Jo without me ever once peggin' it all this time and finally, a woman who needed no intro for she was a force of crazy unto herself.

A gorgeous little doll of a Harujuku girl who went by the appropriately sweet name of Daisy for her frighteningly young face but called herself by the fantasticly pun-o-riffic chop-socky-movie title of Pushinuppi, which, in her broken English that largely consisted of "Me kill you! Good time! Ha-hee!" or something equally adorable, her dog-pitch laughter sounded like shamisen strings to my inner culture vulture otaku.

She was a language expert, fluent in everything but English but I got the sense from her she was possibly playing a part, as many people did in Aersoft to big themselves up so perhaps she was simply drawing a line in the sand between work and play which I totally got.

I loved to think so and I'd wait in baited breath for her to fumble and give up the Kabuki mask but she never did. Either she was genuinely a few egg rolls short of a Bento box or she was an insanely good actress. I didn't really care, in honesty.

Aersoft is a sport without borders, without caste, creed, race or, fantastic for fearless purist me who sometimes in a blue moon when I thought I could get away with the sheer cheek of it, disfigurement or disability for I was snorf-tastic enough to engage the craic-tastic amputees at the Medicare Hospital, perilously close to the epicentre of the nucular skaggy falllout, to get all kitted out with ketchup and fake jelly brains and we'd cackle our respective holes off until the shovel-smacked face of the Matron quickly buzz-killed on those lovely folk and that put paid to the epic lolling of my maniacal zombie-fag youth.

But, there's no killing a teeny little Hawk The Slayer alto-girl with more giggles than sense and so, when one "feral hoarde" fell, two shall rise in its' place and I was spoilt for choice in my giddy mock-battles.

And I had a posses of freaking Guarda summer holliering recruits that ended up being life-mates.

We were ridiciously awesome.

They were all baby faced, fresh from the Academy, dicking around with nothing to do and loved the simple camradery of our days spent wiling away the rainy Saturdays but I was soon left alone more and more as they eventually had to stop acting the maggot by kill-joy instructors with rods up their arses and go do some real policing, their schedules getting awkward.

Even so, cuddly town Sargent Paddy "Spud" Harrington- so called cause he looked like Mr. Potato head with his lop-sided Borat mustashe and slap headedness- never once condemed us but even so, he made us draw up some ground rules so as not to freak out any hapless tourists or unknowning grannies who unwittedly stumbled into the killzone and we in turn ordered him not to go blabbing, wanting to keep our teeny little club to ourselves in our badass ego-driven pride.

Still, we got together as best as we could but outside of the old mill, our little Zombie Survialist Appreciation Club or the Zombusters as Simon had geniusly dubbed it in honor of both our eternal collective love of Ghostbusters that will _never _die and his own obsession with that walrus-looking dude off Mythbusters for whom he had an epic mancrush but always, we gave each other a wide berth, knowing each other only as Sick Nick because he owned a freaking grenade launching Aersoft that I regularly got wetties over and it fired rancid, rotting freezer bags of nastiness from the slaughterhouse where he moonlighted for extra money to spent on his hobby.

Pushinuppi, learning a hair more English, grew bored of the admittedly can't-get -it-the-first-time-round sound of her name and instead went by a spin on her second name that was a hellava lot more bad-ass in that it was simply Ruthless. I think her last name was Kazebrayashi but it's so hard to tell when she rambles in some random language at a million miles a second.

She rocked a couple of exotic electric-powered neon pink Japanese yokes that could punt marble-sized "poppers" that exploded with a satisfing _pffft_ of compressed air. Harmless yet potent enough to blow the baseball caps off a huge thing called Ziggy Zombo which was ever so slightly racist, we thought, not entirely sure if a seven-foot tall, three foot wide hulking Rastafarian-looking guy would take offense to being called a zombo.

Thankfully, he was in-tune with the craic-if you'll pardon the pun- and he turned out to be a recovering former smack-head who had been our boss zombie for a month in the fabled beginnings of our trigger-happy shenanagans due to the fact that he was probaly the only heroin junkie in the world who could easily land a part in a Resident Evil movie simply because he was the exact height and stature of motherfucking Nemisis and he was someone who found in us something infinatly more fun than sweating on the methadone, gleefully shambling, disappearing into the role we forced on him initially because we'd all had simply enough of these goddamned motherfucking smack heads in our motherfucking last exit to No Man Land and it was time to take out the trash.

Okay, so we were all up our own arses but it could've been worse.

Great Zombie help me if I should get my dirty, corn-syrup slick mitts on a _real_ gun!

At first, we greeted the Zigster with trepidation, having seen him hang around every single day at the old mill. We initially thought he was a squatter trying to muscle in on our turf so we had him run a simple gaunlet to test his worth, a challenge he took with gusto but not without training first for we were all nothing if not slavishly devoted to the most minute attention to detail and order and so, every alternate Saturday, we would gang up and shoot pidgies.

God, I f_ucking_ hate pidgeons.

Goddamned rats with wings! Urrrrgh!

Whilst he at first practiced with my girl-hood cheap Spud Guns, popping bits of compressed potato into the dirty, filthy, bastardly pidgeon infestion to get his hand-eye co-ordination back to something close to his sober self, Ziggy-who's real name happened to be possibly the most insanely ludicrous-yet- profoundly fandango batshit so-crazy-it's good New Orleans-born, Jamacian rared, Dublin-based Rasta creedence ever:

Zigvardius Laront D'Jables.

Ziggy, Zigster, Zombo, Jables or Nemmy (for he was was our jolly Rasta Nemesis) for short, to give this gentle, shiny-happy-eternally optimistic exotic coconut of a diamond geezer his full run of nicknames.

He answered to every single one with a toothy grin that was way too perfect for an ex-crackhead. He even has a bullet-case shaped gold filling on one of his savagely pointy canines that matched the armour-piercing faux strips of them he wore crossed over his huge, rippling chest that was always, always, _always_ bare but not in a vain way for it was how he grew up on De I'Lan, Mon and thus all he knew and it was his one of his signature, humble greatness, regardless of pissing rain, rare non-overcast sun or fetidly cold snowing winter.

He was a fucking indescribably magnificent dreadlocked, devil- bearded, shockingly pale azure-eyed juggernaught!

A luverly lump o' chocolate man!

In recent years, he's often the bawing, foundation-shake laughing voice of a lovechild of Sten and Shale when meself and the gang get together for cooldowns playing a Bizarro World Fantasy Dragon Age multiplyer masterpiece of WFT-inducing randomness we made with a little grit, a heavily customised toolset, our own meticulously crafted Z-Brush modifications and Simon's sweet-ass audio-nerd stellar gaff in Stillorgan were we shredded zombie-inspired stoner rock whilst tanked on my intriguing knack for making scarsely rare cider last decades with everything from Cola mixers to Ruthless Pushinuppi's at first non-sensical yet fantasmagorically brilliant suggestion of melting Icebergers, the Irish Klondike bar, into our Baileys and lo, the nicest goddamned pseudo-milkshake with a twist was born on the fabled annals of The Hole.

We were war-lords and valkryies in our own minds, protecting a craggy little slice of apocalyptica that infringed on another wise unfortunatly monickered pretty wee village that was still with a charming kitsch feel to it.

Yet The Hole festers on, encrouching further with minutae pace as the days grow long and we roam the streets until fatique or skaghead take us-or, realisticly, we get bellowed for rooming too close to the dangerzone rad that makes our Pipboys (customised Casios a go-go!) by our shambling nuke ghouls called folks.

As a direct result of our madcap lulz shenanagans, Ziggy was making great progress with this new form of recreational rehab and as he also pumped iron in his expanses ofspare time to kill the cravings with an edorphine rush so came to pass the stupidly ripped muscle tone.

For years, no-one knew what he did for a living.

He just existed, perma-smiling living breeding Carribean sunshine's sole embodient and oh, sure the sun shone out of his shiny shiny teeth.

He looked exactly like The Zombuster's (also the name of our band. I played slap bass and occasionally drums when Ziggy was chilling which was often) subcult-unto-itself our unofficial mascot Manflesh Orc from the second Lord of The Rings, only he was a huge, friendly Rasta with a charming smile who was'nt a day over thirty five but had the baby-faced look of someone much younger and perkier, especially when, after about two or so months into our furative gauntlet-running where we tried desperately to see he had a damage limit (over 9 quadrillion), his parole officer let him off the hook citing us as his new rehab and he was free to buy an Aersoft of his very own with the renounced gear money he'd entrusted to us in a bid to make things more official in something of an island ritual of solidarity, or so we loved to think.

A ridiculously large man needed a ridiculously large set of fire power and utlitzing the assembly line wielding skills he'd learned in the Joy whilst serving a charge we could only speculate on but riffed it was breaking his endless slew of Orientally-flavored girls with something myself and Ruthless Pushinuppi collectively feared and speculated on and when he was fully engrained as a piece of lovable, quirky furnature way into his own personal breakthrough, he'd fashioned this magificent, perfect, unbelievably beautiful, fully automated with the computer parts he always seemed to have at hand, glorious photogenic paint and sealed replica of the experiental four-in-one-round Fatman from Fallout 3 that fired off balloons filled anything from water to Sick Nick's niche of authentic rotting sheep's brains mixed with horse placenta, inside-out rare haggis that Simon constant bitched at him for wasting, the silly half-scot or once, when we were all half cut on one of my galaxy of rocket-fuel recipes, his own excrement.

He shot it at the Medicare Matron down at the epicentre amputee unit who'd killed our buzz the previous year and when it showered her in the watery, fetid diarhhea he'd actually brought upon himself after eating five vindaloos in quick sucsession, the shit just got real and before we knew it, we were gunning it hell for leather in the Zigster's embarassingly huge, lovingly restored vintage ex-army aquatic barge/ jeep of mind-blowing all encompassing obsession we called the "The Beastie" for that's what it was-

A hulking great cigar of metal that was ripped clean from the movie version of Resident Evil Extinction that was the toast of the his ellusive collegues- he was a fully fleged military mascot, an amazingly sharp- minded tactical consultant for the small but spry barracks of lively Tactical Territorial Army jar-heads that lived in the Collinstown's barracks.

It was written in stone by Zombie Jesus himself that he be destined to be our living tank, our blacksmith, our source of shits and giggles and our cuddly teddy bear of slavish devotion.

Our tickled pink honourary Bizarro World L. Ron Emery On Ecstasy Drill Sargent was old potato-headed Paddy Harrington and when he wasn't neck deep in his day job of Padrigh Morr's/ The Hole's Police Cheif Wiggum even though he was sharp as a tack, he l_oved _the idea of us comandeering the abandoned mill as our offical base of operations, especially with Ziggy's legendary success story and though it was a small gesture owing the state of the place, it was an epic one as the multi-feather hatted Sarge and real-life mayor of The Hole decreed it so, saying people need something silly and fun to deviate from the road to damnation.

And just like that, things started to click into place like a well oiled Railgun.

Before I left on my Quilete Excellent Adventure, as the land-side majority winning valkryie Irish Tank Girl leader of the group giving my leet recruiting skills that corrupted the Unlawful Three, I was regularly likened to Jamie Hewlet's mad-cap dynamo and it was my oh-so appropriate nickname when we first met as my head was first-time shorn, I was prancing around like a Harajuku version of her and I adored it so much I regularly cosplayed with Pushinuppi as my Jet or Sub.

She had absolutely no idea who I was splorfling about but she embraced my rampaging otaku with gusto.

And so things started looking up after Sargent Spud's passing of the torch to the old mill.

We rewarded him by dragging him into Dublin City where Push came into her element and I hit up Del Boy for some kareoke in the Ukiyo, rounding out our merry party with an element of the screamingly gay.

We threw a shindig in a shoebox for Sarge and myself, Sick Nick and Marmaduke got on the pipes and not only did we serenade him with a rosing, wholly appropriate gigglefest of Tenacious D's "Dio" because we're just the fucking awesome, Pushinnupi even got up and did her Asian contortionist party trick that made Ziggy-who had the hots and then some for her- go boggle eyed and do the tell-tale "Pop A Boner" shuffle all night.

It was a cracking night and then it was back to Del Boy's and the no doubt haunted flat of my late great lesbian reneage auntie was packed to the rafters, the party not stopping 'til the humourless neighbours called the cops only to boggle to Asward as they reunited with Sargent Spud, the hardless North Circular dynamo they all thought had been lost to The Hole!

We were all flying around on T-Virises, Toxie Wastes and the decidingly more subdued but reliable shades of Bulmers, happy, merry and contented in the knowledge were now offically part of the grander scheme of things.

What had started as angry Goth-Loli me taking her frustrations out before-now faceless, feckless husks of lost humanity had 360ed utterly and now, Ziggy included, I was dancing like an epileptic Moshzilla on the concrete table Jo-Jo had installed for such wild occasions that took the Zigster's huge weight like a champ and then we ended up crashing out on the floor due to negetive number blood sugar slump.

Uber-betes got us in the end bu we were too happy to care and as I revealed in the platonic closeness of my overtly protective big brothers and my mental little sister (by a month, actually), I was almost inclinded to stay just that smidgen longer.

We woke up feeling collectively head-shot and zom-rific, Sarge included for he was off duty and cutting loose, the toast of our party because he was a living Paragon of squee and he let us get away with everything because he say what we set out to do and he understood right off the bad.

He had plaed with air-guns himself at my age so the whole happy flash bomb of high-energy happy lunacy was a throw back to his youth and he had a spring in his step, strutting into work the nexy like despite the Railgun-spike-to-the-head hangovers we all had and he got on with it, the utter legend, even popping in on his lunch break still not quite over it but lucid enough to fire off a round of poppers at the never ending featury death shadow of damned dirty pidgies.

It was only when he did an utterly spectacular freak shot that got the master bird as it's horrid fetid mouth opened for a horrible cheep and the popper got it perfectly. The feather bastard swelled up, Shrek-style and exploded all over us in a bloody, feathery mess and that's when he thought it best to go blow off his admidtedly rather sparse schedule and crash on our bubbles couches, a face like a lump of leather as he stalked down from our tower muttering "Poor wee pidgie" and just then...

...For just five nanoseconds, I wanted to go on a bird massacre something fierce to wipe that blasphemous comment from my mind.

The weeks past by in a flurry of Hive activity among a growing army pushing the hundred barrier and then some.

As I was soon to be leaving for pastures new, joking I might go all Tyler Durden and set up a chapter on the reservation with some proper wolfie natives, we came up with the first new origin story in what felt like decades.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the rambling, contrivulated rampages we got up to but as I wanted to honor Jakey by having everything cheesy and encapsulating everything he loved about our chitchits into one awesome clusterfuck of epicness but I felt swamped, even with him, Sick Nick and Marmaduke putting their own conspitorial secret stamps on things.

Ziggy's official cateen of State sanctioned tacial manovure mentalities took over and he added another feather to his already rather flamboyent, covetted mega-sombro from that time we went out to the single Nandos on the whole of Ireland in the eye of Howth and he joked his head was so large it looked like a fascinator shaped like a rolled up jimmy atop his head.

I cried so hard with laughter he actually had to take me to hospital because I'd inhaled a jalapeno and the choking hysteria made me asthma-plotz. Hence why I'm a long distence stalking, silent lioness instead of a prancing kitten with really sharp claws going everywhere, shreading all in sight.

There was too much buzzkilling exhertion in running so much and whilst I managed to the best of my slowly but surely expanding limits owing to all the excercise I got organizing battles and helping my platonic life-partner soul mate Great Sten Zombo Zigs trawl through reclaim yards in search of his next original and inspired weapons project.

The man could conquer the world in a week if he wanted to but he was so humble and so self-depreciating that all he ever wanted out of life was to run around like a big, lumbering man-child, tickling himself with mock zombie fights, Simonstair's Ferelden Cheese and Marmite Nights every Friday after hours when it started getting abundently clear to my delighted grandmother and crying with job grampappy that I had found my spiritual,help-you-fellow man calling that was just good guy religious to make Edith go on a month long manic spree where she was out dancing with Ol' Smoky every night.

We threw together a mental mess of Grey Wardens meets Enclave/ Brotherhood with a "disgruntled broken home mutt"buddy movie feel for the new wolfy shenanagans in honor of the bloke who was starkly becoming a Paragon-like figure due to the simple novelty that he was a lovely Quilete with wolf totems, Pop Roxx and derp that I couldn't stop sighing about, much to Nick and Simon's irritance, Ziggy's fascination and Ruthless Daisy Pushinuppi's wide-eyed excitement, her English getting even better to the point were we could have proper girl talk, though it was somewhat disarmly brash giving the frighting extent how much we openly cursed around her, giving her a brilliant Hit Girl-kind of vibe of sugary sparkle culture-fucked atomic otaku who looked at the most five years old for she was Japanese to a fault- small, tiny, colourful and sweeter than raw cane sugar soda elixer of yum that she took to like a duck in water but oh, how she cussed like a trooper, hysterically getting lost in translation, bless her kalidescopic-spray-pained night-vision googles!

Major changes aplenty too regarding our new stance as a good natured, charitable place for skaggies looking to redeam themselves and get high on life instead of Great Zombie know's what had turned into something of a quirky little small-town oddity in a way that swept me off my feet and made me panic over the big reveal, fearing my meticulous cover would be blown before I could somehow or other convince Jacob to let me pay with my mind-bogglingly ridiculous inheritence fund that means I can happily do this sort of thing as a 'living' and live off the interest rate of one good thing to come out of a senseless tragedy.

I was richer than God.

But I still wanted everything.

I wanted my man by by my side to share in the glory for I'm the sort who likes to share my wealth, a sensiblity of "some people have more money than sense and they lose the run of themselves by being karmaticly greedy" mentality instilled by both grampies and that smoulding lump of Botox I had insanely freaky nightmares over for an entire year until I started writing them down as crazy Youtube fluff that I send to Jake to give him a small taste of what was then just the four of us little Zombusters and he loved it, wishing he could get to Dublin somewhow or other and go nutso.

Though Cunty Cyphor, who whilst awesome by default by way of being German and a screetch-screamer, was still a massively anti-social, magnolia-vodka swinging surly wanker despite being surrounded by a shit-ton of free swag Hi-Def rigs of epic that made technophilic Asian pixie Pushinuppi cream herself, given to us by Smoky's tickled connections which really started going crazy right up to the week I was all set to leave for the states.

Still, the broading Rasputiny Kraut did cut loose a few times as the pressure mounted and one evening when we finally got him bladdered on, all things, Scrumpy Jack cider, and got the band together, we let him be Dani Filth for an hour or two and I sang the soft, litling non-asthma-inducing girl part on _Nyphetamine_ whilst I rocken Corben Dallas, my beloved eleven year old tie-dye effect sentimentally priceless-but- nameless bass that Smoky had customed up for me when, as an eight year old musical aficenciadofor my grampies' great tastes, I was taken to Waltons and I ran straight to the basses, wide-eyed with wonderment over something strange and exciting.

"That's not a guitar! What's _that_?"

That first deep bassy twang of sexy promise had me sold and I became a motherfunker over night, Jo-Jo all set to kick a puppy in glee when she started helping to teach me the chords to _Hit Me With your Rythmn Stick_ in her rebel retired music teacher kind of way after I splorflegasmed when she firsted played for me the collection _"Reasons To Be Cheerful"._

Perfect, perfect album title, Ian Dury, you champange supernova mother-funking pinball wizard!

Cunty Cyphor sometimes jammed as a screetchy guest accompanyant when we all went a little larry under the full moon now we had night-cameras and we decented into apocolyptic, Rammstein-channelling war cries of _Du Reicht So Gut _when my lungs didn't burn so much that I could join in on the lest gutterial parts,that made the Fibber Furs have a veritable frenzy over our new Moonlight Night-Op bloodlustings and the scuffles were a triumph to watch, espcially now that we had several non-particpating (too chicken shit but gimme five minutes of downtime and a vat of Toxic Waste!) gonzo camera-men from NCAD who really went to town with our FX guys in making the

Galley of Gore something that will be past down through the historical doctrines of future generations of Hole Patrols, as we're known affectionatly by the delightly tongue-in-cheek Steel Panter loving fluffy spandextered hair-banders.

They pop in on Sundays when it's easier to manage for light scuffles and they give it some welly in the Kocari Wilds-themed Jungle Fever fights down in the small patch of high grass enclosed in a large square that was probably just a simple storage yard at once but was now a brilliantly overgrown Amazonian wildness of tall grass and thickets of stingy plants.

We even have an amazingly word and photo accurate English snark-machine Morrigan doppleganger who's tasked with popping up at random and slingshots them with flashing coloured smoke bombs that look utterly gorgeous when the moon is at it's zenith, there's laughter in the air and all is good and biblically savage good fun in the world.

Still, as lively as we are, and with my flight just days away, I'm feeling the increasingly persistant waves of burnout that are plaguing me lately due to poor me being rushed off my feet trying to instil order in a laberythine twelve-odd solid acre complex that often gets me trapped down twists I could've otherwise navigated in my sleep backwards with my hands tied.

Cyphor, cranky asshole, was feeling it to and he was back to igoring all offers of chill out jams before going back to hermitting over the shapely, slick master peace website we had floating around, ready to go live as the second as I uncovered Jacob's eyes and caught his reaction.

He was the only thing that kept me slaving over school, homework, then the sodding program paper work, then sorting out proper insurence for the Wolf Den, then you had to balance the over-heads and running costs of something that first was a triump to be hold as it snowballed down the mountained.

I feel like Indiana Jones with concrete shoes and a Railgun hangover that won't go away.

Smoky noticed my increasingly haggard looking, hair-trigger temperment that was turning me into Yelena Rossini when she was a on constant, nicotine-deprieved PMSy, whoospy-doo boffed by Spider, pissed levels making the geiger count go insane in general and the feeling of a rapid decent into madness that at several points had see Ziggy comfort me with big bear hugs and and his special blend of magical chocolate non-alcoholic in nature island comforts that normally pulled be back if I was particularly stressed at any given day.

Of the for original Zombuster Elders, I was the one left holding our lovely and gorgeous and beautful but somehow rapidly bloating and touch-too-heavy baby.

I was in the throws of the baby-ragings and it was so far gone that not even climbing up to the Elder/ Swiftrunner rank elites due to the ricketiness that I was bending over backwards in a bid to get re-inforced on the cheapy but quality standard as the bard was done up.

The contracters didn't want to know me because my voice sounded tiny and I couldn't handle the unrelenting stream of calls, district papers and dubious news spot offerings on the local cable access channels.

This should've been everything I evern wanted but right now, three days into my escape that I should be tripping over my own legs in rapture about now looks more and more like a run-with-tail-between-legs sort of thing and pass the reins over to The Grand Stenny Zomba Zigs for he was so effortless unfappable and indominable in both nature and size that he could do the job of ten diffferent people.

I was scarfing down space browies any chance I got and being crabby with my grandmother, ending up in smacks on the chops for being an unholy little toe-rag of neurosis and backtalking her.

So help me, the next little timewasting first-timers who can't respect the simple fucking rules of immersion and want the Fatman's off the bat, so hell me I will leap over my desk, throw them on the ground and slam dance all over their faces in golf cleats if they're fucking brainless, inbreed wanna be Scout-spoiled Cublings don't stop screaming.

No-one under the legal drinking age, for fuck sake!

We're not changing it and then going end up getting fucking sued out the wazoo just 'cause little Jacinta Jemunterpeddle and Jedward fucking Jinglepiss donesn't to fuck up his high-lighted poncy fade with helmets, goggles and guards.

There's a reason Ziggy works himself to a quiet collaspe crafting unique, Wolf Pack Raider-style armour!

The day before my flight, I called Smoky in desperation and cried down the phone over the whole sorry mess and I was screaming regret over thinking doing this sort of shit for a living was a good idea.

All he had to say was two days more.

Two days more and then a blissful, stress year were I could push the reset button, go back to being Alexandra Sweeny, splorfler extraordinare with the slap-base the snorting when I laugh at reverently funny natives.

I wanted my old life back, when all this was just so happened to be idealism, fantasy and bullshitting over cans of al fresco cheap cider outside Whelans rock put, waxing lyrical with my mates about a spur-of-the-moment flash-mobbing Thriller dance for the sheer hell of things.

Fucking hell, I'm eighteen going on dead at this rate.

Fortunately, Smoky comes to save the day with his magical hippy 'black book' which now was a Blackberry which he can barely use, bought by be for him with my stupidly large amount of inheretence form my rich Texan NRA-loving redneck father and my afluent farming-stock mother when silly ol' stoner complained the spine was getting weak

He ended up calling in a few favours and within a matter of what felt like seconds where they rappled through the roll-open ceilings I'd yet to get recreational clearence for a Mission Impossible shtick Sick Nick was creaming over.

The irony of my running a crack-distract shack when I myself liked special brownies and whilst once I putzed over I loved megatons of people pointed out the snerk factor of my being the grandchild of the village's reefer-smoking, browie-baking hippy Gandalf with the stake in the Lush Soap company's popular hemp selection that, on hearing Ol' Smoky's reply to the simply question of "How's Tank Girl?"

He lets the cat out of the bag and we're bombarded but it was good thing for they were bringing the Junkie Jacintas and we finally had enough chicks on board that I could be girly with and indulge my inner Charlotte York, which helped because I likened my plight to a metaphorical freak prego that several of them symphatized with, some even driven to smack because of it and my eyes were opened to the fact that I'd been so unfairly judgement to people who had far worse problems than my own out-of-debt bitchings.

I returned in shades, slowly as Smoky's little imps from the hemp processing factor up in the mountains- the mist in the mountains ganja smoke rather than simply altitude fog and when I made that joke to the Junky Jacintas, they all lit up with life at the weak attempts at illiciting the lulzy.

Smoky's fantasicly smelling Lush Army arrived with the swag bags they regularly sent me times five hundred millionty and I remembered how we'd recently slaved to convert a wing of the encampent to include simple but beautifully hand-crafted Hole Patrol collective karma army-seal-of-approval snazzy digs and barracks for those who need a safe, welcoming refuge that was otherwise lacking.

It was scary at first with a few scary space cadets walking in with a goddamn sense of entitlement and I found myself cracking up into helpless nervy laughter over the fact they were trying to shaft a sprawling complex of beasties with roughly a combined experience what feels like over nine million years of fire-arm experience.

Safety and friendliness is the policy but something I want to just grab Sick Nicks Sheep Launcher and have him punt repugnant watery vindeloo horror shows into their fucking munter faces.

I swear, I'm about to go feral.

My only joy was from the mad, friendly down-on-their luck non-smack but safe-harbour-seeking single moms who could help me through this horrid, crushing madness that I comended them for pushin through with.

My little quiet mind-baby had been born and it was a fucking screaming, snarling, grating anti-crhist like the ones I had to endure ironically enough to bring this place to frutation.

Our Sex and The Shit Hole-style chats over Zigster's legendary island paradice style eternally shirtless hospitality went down a treat and I found myself channelling Sammy Jone's smut-tastic brain and sexual comedic timing in the occasion time when I quietly dreamt of abusing my position of power in my own twisted, frazzled head that suggested constantly that I need a good lay to calm me.

The girls brayed like donkeys and all but threw an utterly flustered Zigs at me using their collective strenght as their own little Bitch Pack and I felt heartened, soon kicking myself for not taking the time to get to know these wonderful, warm, affectional and kind-hearted people who's only guilt was falling on hard times yet I must've worsed their day and then some, being a wee toerag with a toy fun, wretching ther clothes with cornstarch and red colouring.

They were a sound bunch of giggly girl with more than enough echos of my great aunt Jo-Jo.

We had silly, exageratingly piss-take parody-chats in character persona and whilst I wanted desperately to be the scenery-chewing, effortless cool screaming queen-in-a-power-cougar's body, when I indugled my boxsets in the Green Zone cooling room were everyone hung out like a commune of escaped mental patentions in varying factions of nerdy armour and creeds, I was the biggest nerd of them all.

_The Mordor On The Dancefloor_ utter disco-fusion montly non-trigger happy fancy dress disco insanity that was Push's crazed idea sparked one night when we were re-capping Ziggy on the gloriously fleeting but memorable part of Two Towers when the hobbits are going to be frog-marched to Isengaard and that one magnificent lump of an Orc uttering the immortal line of "Manflesh!" that gave us no end of crying fits when Ziggs, in his wonderously happy-to-be-here-being-delightfully-random outlook on life then spent a whole month after we first pointed out the frighteningly eery dopplegangerliness getting people at random in the street to put huge rivules of white grease paint on him in whatever way they so chose, with the immortal utterence after every single uneasy yet bemused person who successfully tagged him.

That was Ziggy all over. And the amount of gee he got that month!

A big, silly child ,so beautifully moonlight-blue hueing blue-black that he need only white greasepaint to look the spit of his Kiwi twin. He even learned to do the Marari Haka during this magical month when he was going utterly nerdgasmic on Lord of The Rings-specifically the weaponary and armours he was hopelessly devoted to in the Oliva Newton John sense.

He was a celebrity hero worshipped by the wide-eyed "survivors" of the Initation nights because he always went the extra mile with theatrics to give the younglings a hoot of a first time season. I cared not for whatever it was he did to land in the Joy. He was a beautiful soul and I'm so happy I didn't almost killed him with Uber-Betes during Cherry Custard Constription Day.

Ohhh, if I'd never had Jakey-Cakes in my life, I'd be all over Zigs like frosting on a big gooey cupcake of mollasy black fudgy delight.

I would blantantly and shamelessly platono-flirt merciless with him, knowing fully well how he and a giddy, babbling Pushinuppi were in the first flushes of a you'd-never-think-it, culture-clashing jungle fever-type tryst, an oddly mismatched but perfect together blend of hyper/calm that could only herald in the mother of all timeless office romances.


	5. Chapter 5

Many an hour passed when the news broke in from a cackling, insanely rare luxery Guinness Marmate jar and finger-dipping, red-lipstick-covered vision of beer bellied derp Simon-stair chosen because despite thebeer belly even though he was only in the 20-24 bracket (he keeps me guessing), cropped back hair and tendecy to glower dramaticly when flustered, he went for the splintmailed armour because he was ladies man and it meant getting pelted with smelly, rancid soak-cheese grenades, then the girls dressed as zombie wenches would rugby tackle him to the ground and happily molest him because he was the best looking Elder with the exact note perfect snarky tone that made all the girls swoon and right now, he was fresh from a fan-girl baiting day of Kissy Chase Therin McCheesy over in the Fereleden compound, tunelesslysinging and strutting to _Jungle Boogie _before he started air-humping as did an vocally perfect in-character yet uniquely Simon-y diatribe peppered with his bizarre little combinations of inspired slang before informing me that my tiny jailbaiting Japanese homegirl and my loyal puppy dog of a meat pillow when I wilt from happy exaution into his lap for cuddles were re-enacting Showgirls as we spoke before he copped eyes on our so dead-pan it hurts London- born aristrocatic goth-girl Morrigan (her name was Morgana in real life as her mother was a Pagan, mousy little thing who regularly and in good humur put in as Flemeth via ferry for special events and we often beer-ponged together on our many relaxed stances on lunch breaks.

Morgana or Meghara, as I had mistakenly called her on Blood of The Reverent initiation day was nothing if not unconventional and her face lit up at my flubbing her name, getting very entusiastic about the mention of anything remotely to do with Disney movies despite the fact she had her age marked at thirty five and yet her face was frozen in time on smooth faced Morticia Adams with her enviable hip lenght black locks, striking beautiful in one of those obviously natural but arresting sort of ways and when she was all done up in her snarky finest, sundial-shaped nipply rings poking provocative, shamelessly Simonstair-baitingly from her wilds bikini top, she could've jumped from the PC screen but the simple fact of the matter was that Simon was obsessed with her simply because he'd always want to French kiss a chick with a tongue stud... amongs other delightful piercings...

She took it all in good humour, her smiles nothing but very muted little barely-there twitches at the corners of her devil-red lips. Simon was utterly smitten with her cause he had a humongous fetish for exotic Goths but she never once gave him an opening despite her eyes twinkling when she saw him. That said, when Push and Zigster apparently got cosy together, she seemed almost bereft to look at unknowningly and I all but punted Simon at her, my inner Morristair fangirl going utterly psychotropic.

Something must've been in the water that night for Push and Zigs were no-where to be found and I later spotted Simon strutting to the Special Ops come Video Game Heaven room in a routine I'd come to know over over the years I knew him that ment he'd gotten that rare and ellusive phone number instead of the usual smack in the face or, sometimes, a kick to the goolies and I knew he was off to indulge in some celebatory _Guitair Hero_. The man refused to go cold fusion and pick up a real one but he had the top four smuttyly abbrieviated Nightmare scores so maybe he couldn't play with a digital counter reminding him of his own awesomeness, the shameless narc!

Simon told me giddily the following week he finally got his wish of a Marque De Sade and I tripped balls and then some.

As for Ruthless Daisy Pushinnupi (I still maintain that name is the most pun-o-rific thing ever) and a cetain Mr. D'Jable hadn't been seen for days together in the same room twice, I got all Angela Lansbery and totally cockblocked Simon from some freaky Goth rumpy-pumpy in his private dorm when I barded in and dragged out of the place with the dog lead still tied to his neck.

Morgana did her sardonic grainy chucking deep in her throat and went off to go concoct something in the Reseach Kitchen with the most wonderfully non plussed, utterly bored looking face on her that was so utterly incharacter I went to glomp her and she dropkicked my bony ass with a Demonia stacker shoe so fast I heard the snap of the sound barrier as it collided with my thankfully Templar Armoured torso at the time but I could feel the sheer force of her and I knew then I had to have her on security details or a Gothic Fight Club in the huge sprawling basement that we'd yet to find a purpose for. It was an underground car-park for now but it made from fantasticly B-rated set drops for the online porfloio Cyphor and I were snarkly bitching over.

I respected Morgana's boundries after that but I loved how utterly flustered she got, breaking her icy demeanor as she gasped, Simon-esque flapping hands flustered as she asked if I was okay.

Pure fucking reflex I later found out.

From a new form of capiera called Gravesrobber Style as she first came up with it watching Repo and casually shadow boxing in time to _Zydrate Anatomy _that combined both shadow boxing a capiera with slam-dancing and it became something of both an excercise warm up and a victory fance for farcical overkills in the commune.

I had a huge hunkerin' bruise from where my armour had dented into my sternum and buckled into me as it was made for asthetic Joining ceromonies rather than for combat and wearing, I actually secretly enjoyed the almost morso than the actual Aersofting because it was so hileriously hammy and theatrical.

After she patched me up like a seasoned pro, her iciness thawed out and she told me she was only ever aloof to attracted the dude-bros with the kinky sides and I ordered her to make me Maid of Questionable Honour at the Burning Man ceromony and she laughed, the exact same laugh you get from Morrigan in game if you outsnark her and hit "Get in the tent, woman!" and when I told her I wanted to have lesbian Pagan babies with her just so the world could have more of her bucket-of-sand irreverent dead-pan zingers, she actually snorted.

She was my biggest girl crush of the year and she entusasthicly goaded me into a few bullwhipping wrist flicking techniques that were just as filthy as that sentence suggests. She also taught me how to toiter in that dainty yet sultry way in the five inch stilleto platforms I had languishing as an impulse buy in my closet for a Magenta costume one year that never worked out.

I was strutting down the George with Del Boy all night after words without ever once feeling foot bunning thanks to her slew of experience as a former non-sexual dominatrix alternative therapist in Camden.

Now that's a helluva CV!

We became BFFs when I introduced her to Del Boy and they stuck to each other like glue after literally five minutes of being zingerliscious. She then moved in with him, making her our permanent Morrigan and I knew-just knew this was Jo-Jo's doing.

A snarky, Disney-loving angel of droll sent to get Delly back to his typically brash, fully cocked self. Jo-Jo wayed her magical pixie-dust encrusted sceptre of fabulous and sure enough, dark angel Morgana finally hooked up with Simon, giving so much lovely chemstry to their official duties that made me involentarly shuffle and rattle my fists eeeeeeee-ing like a douche everytime I thought they weren't aware of my stalking persence.

I defend it only in that Simon's my tank on the Five A Side Thedas World Cup extravaganza he'd been bitching literally since we sometimes strolled around town in full Pushinuppi couture rainbow explosion crotchet versions of their trademark starting armours but I have literally no tits, height or any of Meg-as Simon affectionally called her thanks to their mutal shared interests- effortless grace so I usually went as Bear!Queen Ohgren on account of my tinyiness and legit insanity.

I hardly saw Push and Zigs anymore outside the compound, incidentally.

I couldn't have believed it it to be true unless I happened to walk in one night just before the mouth mark of my impending trip, poised for the scrubbity after a rainbow napalm explosion made me look gayer than a meatball.

I only go and barge in on Push going for gold in the Holy Shit Make It Unseen Olympics in an inspired after-hours testing out of the shower-head endurence ratio with mucho gusto, not noticing me at all as I goggled dumbfounded at Push's shibari rope bondage skills against this massive seven foot by three wall-of-muscleof a man sweetly taking her gently from behind and she's making noises like a epileptic dolphin as he rocks lazily into her compact, teeny four foot nine and a smidgen frame with the most disturbingly calm closed-mouth smile on his face, eyes closed like in a " _Oh, lo',_ _'mon_. _No worries! It happens all the time, 'mon. No worries. Close de door, no. We be rockin' de casbah"-c_ucumber-cool kinda way he normally reserved as my Great Sten Zombo when he's break up any unauthorized messing with the same soft smile that I'll never be able to look at quite the same way ever again...

...Which is_ exactly_ what happened and it put paid to any playful designs I might have on our big Orc/Urk-Khi/Quinari/Golum/Troll/ Hank McCoy/ Rastafarian Space Marine go-to-guy for huge, hulking juggernaut characters for a long while up until I had to watch that infamous Mr. Hands with the My Lovely Horse dubbed over childhood-breaking soundtrack just to bump the ten times more horrific live image from my brain when it was still engrained in my brain despite copious amounts of Brain Bleach ( clear absinthe, vodka and the tinies trickle of illegal yet illicit pucchin Irish 200% proof moonshineSmoky brewed up after I told him of my horrying nightmares.

He was hung like an Olyphunt and he wasn't even half-sheethed when he made Push launch arching robes of super-presseruziedRasta splorf and all across our just-been-hand polished antique sheet metal- plated ventilation-style patch work communal showers that I had Switch put in after he went off to Austria for a metal fest and came back with with shedloads of these vintage tiles off Luftwafer Phanzer tanks he found in a treasure throve of a war-time reclaim yard that he abjectly refused to take any form of payment for other than a kegger of Toxic Waste, for he was a very humble chap who kept to himself and could barely make eye contact with me even after the crux of a year.

That said, teeny Switch was a fucking glow stick Mozart with a stunning bit of self made squee kit we dreamed up for the odd birthday party or two that was like a lightweight shoulder-mounted Gatling Laser that pumped out tiny multicoloured flash-bulbs filled with confetti that sparked like Pop Rox in a kaliedscopic variety of prograble patterns.

He was a unasumming little Beaker of a bloke with the carroty-ginger hair for it and steam-punk glasses he made from old broken bits of destroyed fobwatches. Nothing in the comunne of the Wolf Den ever went to waste for had so many specialists in so many trades that our waste disposal charges were virtually zero as whatever fritzed out, was lost to time or careless was repaired, upgraded, downgraded (for some nonsenscial reason)

I give him two whole years supplies of my patent quirky cocktails along with a little recipe book I made up in Photoshop for the overseas lodgers who didnt want to leave with the knowledge this was the only place you could get my shit.

I also bistowed upon him the unheard of privilage letting him touch bass with my precious bass for a round of celebatory Don't Stop with him eventually coming out of his little shell to go nutso on his ratty bu honest old nameless electric triangle axe.

But as much history as there was behind those lovingly restored tiles, nothing could get the jizz stains off the more worn, crinkling varnish ones and I avoided the community showers like the plague, instead sponge-bathing myself in my own simple little "pie in the sky" at the top of the stupidly high tower where no-one could see me so high up and neck height-walled it was that as the rage fade, I found myself turning native more often than not when what was now a commune of merry, varied peeps from all walks, hooting with laughter and joy and as I soon floated back into my body again, naked in the light of the biggest goddamned wolf moon I'd ever seen in my short life-huge and bright like a disced mother-of-pearl earring nestled against the short black crop of my grandmother's glad-rag looks, alighted for the airport reborn and refreshed and ohh...

Oh, I smiled for the promise of unchecked mayhem for the weekends without me...

Our name had chanced too. After nearly a decade, it was inevitable, really.

The Howling Wolfs Survivalist Federation: The Order Of The Hole.

Totally me tripping balls on our post- moving in swag of a cocktail I whipped up to toast our first night of owning the mill where we had a sleepover with heavy-duty tents and the whole shebang of junkies scuffling out side like Night of The Living Deadhead, all thanks to my experiences working as a waitress in a bar that Edith has no idea was a fag joint, reknowned for weird mixes and of course, kerb-crawling for sparkle-queens one summer when I was fortheen and kicked it with dear aunt Jo-Jo.

I call it the T-Virus because it consisted of blue bubblegum Jones, a shot of Jagiermiester, blue Aftershock and blueberry Mickey Finns -if you could get it- for a gorgeous after taste. It was sugary and refreashing in equal merits and it made you shuffle like a zombie gurning incoherently after just a four-pack of Jones.

I even gave my debit card a hammering, my inheritence coming out in well-protected trickles so I could make a large cubby with an arbutoir/ autopsy room vibe look like a processing plant of scrumped leftover pipes and metal scrap procured from building sites left lax with security, complete with one hundred percent magificent Ziggy-made cylinder glasses and fun contraptions made from our dearly departed broken or age depriecitated weapons for when we had regular raves and pretended to shoot the "virus" at unsuspectingly curious regulalar joys as well as the hoarde.

Ripsnortingly good fun and inspired by our kind hearted inhouse weapons expert Grand Sten Zombo-a special honor bestowed only to him for he was our first success story and he was massive Dragon Age fan after my own foolish heart, and we decided before I went to set up a small charity for anyone in need of an alternitive to shooting up, seeing as it snowballed and we were regularly getting calls from paint-splattered skaggies begging to take a wack at the revealry.

Having three trainee Guards on the Elder squad had it perks and we soon set up an initation assault course to seperate the wolves from the sheep along with a "joining" that consisted of great hammy acting on the Elder's parts and Cyphor's own slavish devotion to finding me some great and tooth-rottingly sweetass special FX video tutorials on the webs.

The "blood of the Reverent" (the master zombie played by Ziggy who was a dab hand at all things theatrical) was actually Cadburie's mollase syrup, incredibly rare eBay fodder used only when the extra special ex-skags showed particularly good promise if and when they built their strenght back up in the training stages with the Spud Guns. Then, to make it liver-destroyingly light I'd dump vats of strawberry Angel Delight with syrups and saps and all kinds of yumminess. It was incredibly realistic looking "blood" as I'd killed myself in my bio-research lab trying to come up with something that didn't make them all actually drop dead of Uber-betes.

T'was all a bit of fun and I didn't want them leaving with a bad taste in their mouth.

The man called Cyphor was not human for he spent all his time in the LED-splashed "special ops" lab that was so epic I could've shit a kitten.

Through the Chinese water-torturingly slow drip of info he came out with, I found Cyphor was richer than Jesus and and a bigger douchebag than the ego-baby of Kanye West and Simon Cowell as he was a former trainee techy alumni of the greedy Wanker Banker squad that crippled the country and he had expertly siphoned thousands of the company gravy fund to an untraceable bank acount of which he refused to say the how, whys or wheres of, making me dubious.

But he was so droll and so effortlessly cool with his Rasputin look that it was hard to avoid get crossed between intenionally tagging the snarky feck or buying this strange, magnolia scented vodka you could only get in a shop he was familiar with over in a shady part of Drogheda, that made everyone see through time after just a timble-full but he simply knocked it back like water and barely flinched, his long beard making his age indetermate but I guess about three hundread and he smirked wickedly, beard blending into the fierce midnight blue of his hair, glistening as he drank like a tropper and seemed perfectly lucid after about fifty kegs of this potent, magnolia gut-rot.

I think he's German.

Or possibly Russian if the vodka love is any inclination.

His accent is thick, brutish, curt and perfect for screaming death metal which he entusiasticly indulges in when we all flout the "Don't mingle outside the den"-type rules that we shameless send up from Fight Club.

Our rules were simple and because there were always the now classic chem-skags stiff , jonsing, shuffling around in the dark not knowing what the fuck to think about this motley gang of Aersoft gun-totting badasses and whilst some of them gave druggy but spirited performences, loving the good-natured madness as the acrimonous air was ebbing away, but there was always one or two scumbags wanting to ruin it for all of us but since Ziggy lost his wife, kids, and home to the heroin and had seen it's effects, he was perfectly content and the one with the Vietname acid flashbacks to act as night-watchman and sleep in the Recovery Room that was really just a a hall with inflatable couches.

It was growing from that fabled passing of the gnarled, rickety keys that we'd never used as we simply broke a window in our determination to enforce squatters rights and marshal zombie lay.

Slowly but steadily over the years, our ranks grew and grew.

The mill could easily accomidate close to two thousand people and still have plenty of place to swing a tiger by the tail because it was used for so many things over about two hundred-odd years that it was a laberynth of dead-ends, false turns and trapping, spiralling corridors that we four Elders all knew as intimatly as our good parts by now and the place was being reclaimed by the wilds,looked fantasticly eerie, post-apocolyptic and imposing with the missty Irish summer monsons, a micro-city populated by hardcore zombie nerds who had found their true calling in life eve if we don't offer prizes for kills other than beer, good times and happy memories.

Incidently, we had so many rules kicking around that myself and Simon drafted in Sargent Spud to help go over the rules from an offical legal point of view.

And low, the _Lucien Von Awesome Lycan Charter of Marshal Law_ named in honor of mine and Pu'sh's screaming wetties over Michael Sheen, came to pass.

The rules were sparse but necessary to ensure full immerson as well as serious measures to protect our new home.

Typical fucking skags.

They see something shiny, they want to skull-fuck it and smash it up for the lulz.

**All new initates must undergo full security screening to enliminate the risk of trained hybrid spies in the ranks. We operate a strict "All are welcome and all levels of openess about identity, class and creed are welcome". However, to protect the cause, we ask that you follow the gospel laid down by our furry ancestors-**

I shivered happily at that.

Jacob was going to _die_.

Just die of happiness.

And Joining Juice!

**-In that what goes on within the safety and the neutrality of the compond stays within the compound. Do not speak of our cause for you shall envoke the fury of our claws."**

A spirited cover-up to weed out the true nutters, performed largely in part by a small group of Mongrels (according to their prior experince as dole-cue former bouncers, Securitas graduates looking for a laugh and some who were still cutting their teeth with Aersofting but were nothing if not eager.

They were all generally unemployed but exponentially usefully, skilled out of work peeps from all over Dublin and a few who'd flout the "Don't Talk About The Hole Patrol" guidlines we mock-scream for shits and giggles.

There were a few legendary people who turned up in a mini-flash-mob of modified Stormtropper outfits made to look like Brotherhood of Steel armour and I could've married every single last stinking one of them for the attention to detail was atonishing.

This was was going to fucking snowball now we'd gone online and called forth those for the howling, our new origin story of a "mutt and mongrel gang with a playfully tongue and cheek furry Grey Warden-feel from Tallaght, Stillogan, Japan, England and beyond" stricking a resonance with myself- I wasthe only one with the proper survivalist story of being orphaned in an inferno and send to this accursed hole to rise up as a rebel with rainbow soaks and a glaxy of interchanging weekly dye jobs that made something of a legend.

Morbid curiousity compelled them to poke and sporf, yes, but I was not normally one to bottle as the very thing I was the centre of when I first took a pot-shot at some waster's ball-sack was giving so much joy. I felt giddy with joy.

They use solidering metal so they were properly lumbering under realistic armour and I soon discovered they one guy among them who miscontrued the website's call of "Come All Ye Mighty Beasts" to be literal and turned up in an amazingly realistic fur-suit, hunched over and slobbering KY Jelly all over my recruitment board.

He turned out to be one of the jobbing, work-for-hire guys on Dog Soliders that Smoky had blabbed to and with him doing all our FX work, we sound had videos on the site and more people showing up. Underneath the stilts and chunky retro but workable backyard animatronica, he was shorter than me, painfully shut but a hurricane in tiny form.

I called him Switch in honor of his dainty little driftwood carvings of the snowflake-white wolf-head necklaces we awarded when the players rose in rank. It was a lovely, unique gift and whilst we didn't have cash prizes or anything overly materialistic in nature other than an apocolypse supply of T-Virus cocktails and it's strawberry lime variety Modified T-Virus to offer, the heads were highly sought after by the Cubs and there would seven shades of unholy mayhem on Initiation night because, to be fair to both Cub and poor Switch's tiny fingers, only about seven of them were ever in circulation at a ratio of once every six weeks, awarded only on basis of hits and creativity along with too many facotors to mention amassed over the scuffles that were alternatively overseen by a roating roaster of Elders and Grand Poobah.

Among the rules, we had silly points bonuses.

**Over 9,000 points if you managed to get a shot through their gore bag and have it explode like a blood shower over them, leaving them shambling, dazed and confused, scratching their empty heads **(and bollocks, usually, considering I'm quite the god-modding cheeky feck with a sniper rifle in my hand and one less letter on my hall table when I regoin the lesser mortals)** and gurning idioticly.**

Cyphor and a few other techy people with unspecified roles but computing and security backgrounds helped rig up the compound just before I set off to shut down my brain, comparmentalize my animal instincts and be a big prancing girl again.

I would keep track of the madness on the private server Cyphor wacked on my freshly uber-pimped laptop. I felt like I was part of a new world order, an extended family of nutters, poets, artists, reformed bad boys, nice girls who wanted to unleash their inner bitch, quiet but surgically precise salty dogs and the trigger-happy Cublings just out for a great fucking weekend a bit different to standard ass paintballing.

For the first time in my short life, outside of my grampies, I felt like I truely belonged in the world. I had found my niche and it was both offbeat enough to appease my inner alt-girl but good spirited and giving enough to leave me racking up so much karma for helping the people I once took sadistic pleasure in pelting with ketchup.

I was no better than them because I had sunken to their level but after meeting Ziggy, my temporary second in command until my right-hand hench and wanton rut slave Jacob joined us, I thought with a cackle, wondering if he'd grown into his features yet.

. I planned to surprise him by using the money my parents left me (which even I didn't know how much, hench why I tried to avoid spending upwards of €2,000 in the space of six weeks lest I suffer the plight of the Insignigent Funds screen.

It was right up there with the dreaded Blue Screen of Death in making me rage.

I was amazed I hadn't seen a Savior of The Wasteland motif flash in my mirror each morning thanks to what I helped set in motion. I say it not out of ego for get that out on the killzone with the baying, jubulent friendly not-quite-there-yets who do it for the craic rather than the crack and take merriment in a natural high better than any drug as they're used for our zombies.

In return for letting us splatter them with corn-syrup, Smoky used some of his savings to help open a soup kitchen that looked suitably faux-grindhouse where we gave them some of his yummy minestrone (clean, now!), treats from our three lovely sponsors, one of which just happened to be the hemp soap company Smoky farmed for.

They were so tickled over the you-couldn't-make-it-up fact that one of their growers had a reletive who was organising a charitable zombie killingAersoft compound.

I had to keep pinching myself when I woke up because I was afraid it would all be a dream brought on by baking too many brownies. As the countdown began for my trip to the states, my buzz was wanning and though I kept updated via my laptop, it wasn't the same.

They'd also booked a hen party on the back of a fluff-tastic movie in the charts right now that people were saying was threatening to bork the vamp and lycan genres simulationly in an epic nazi fail.

Apparently, it turned out to be a Ed Wood-approved romping muscial staring the only man who could ever sway me away from Jacob, that being Michael Sheen being scruffy and wettie-inducingly epic in Rise of The Lycans doing a piss-take on the genre and branching out into a fantasticly cheesy musical ode to all thins leechy and snarling and I unnfed as I googled his gorgeous, unique, scruffy on my laptop, feeling like I was cheating but too amourous to care as I indulged in a little yiffing of my own.

Thank the great wolf I was muffled by six foot thick concrete.

I was so high on feel good endorphines that I came like a snarling bitch in heat.

Silly Hole Patrol_,_ I thought as I lay spent and shivering on my bed about five minutes later, thighs quivering and my digits slick with girl-jizz as I cleaned myself up with some Wet Wipes I kept by my bed. Either I'm pmsing and horny as fuck, drunk on a andrenline or I'm turning into a total fur-fag, I thought, wrinkling my nose.

I caught the yiff!

Oh noes!

I was always more of a suck-head fan but perhaps it was Jacob's influence on me. The guy went nuts for wolves, spinning me some long winded shpel about being decended from some since-been-discredited "missing link human/wolf" hybrid they found in Kerry a few years back but since turned out to be a fake planeted by an Anomynous flash-mob with access to an antropology facility.

It was all in protest against that bloody motorway.

Stupid people diggin' up a beautiful place for a hulking great slab of tarmac just 'cause they're too fucking lazy to take the scenic route, kick back and enjoy the ride.

As much love as I had for crazy ol' America, I did not like the idea of the fucked up people in the Minestry of Transport and Agriculture letting people get away with it.

Fucking fascist, capitalist overloads.

I slipped back into Mohgra mode, suddenly wishing I was back at the compound indulging an after-hours frenzy of "Bash Biffo" where we lined up old straw-stuffed pillow-case effegegies of the people we hated the most and shot them to shreds after the camp closed for the night 'round nine-ish as people had to regretably go back to reality

I've overkilled on Katie Price twice because I was having flashbacks again to the inferno, Paris fucking Hilton because she's Paris fucking Hilton and I rage over the fact she's not caught Super Aids yet.

As for Justin Bieber, if I hear Baby one more fucking time I will pull a motherfucking Heston on the radio.

I've clocked up 23,0056 Epic Win points in the last week alone on our just been-installed home-maded geiger-counter inspired "frenzy" monitors so I must be on the rag.

It all Ziggy's idea. He is a magnificent bastard, a sultan of scrap. If I gave him a bent, rusted tin can and a flat-as-a-pancake car battery, he'd probably make me a fully working time machine that doubles as a particularly kitschy clock radio.

My basement looked like my Old Bag Lady, heavy modded house in Megaton and I was tripping Donkey Kong balls over the fact.

He was feeling homesick and we shot the shit over some Toxic Waste (Melted Loop The Loop popsicles with the chocolate used as a skin on top mixed with a smidgen of green apple Jones and banana liquer. Don't let the name fool you. My most yummy cocktails are usually the ones that look disgustingly off-putting and this was no exception. Whatever's in the ice pops and Jones react and cause a very appropriate chemical reaction making it fizz and bloop like toxie waste, hence the name. It was tropical, light and good fun to chuck if you were suck of T-Virus Nuclear hangovers and it made my poor Poombah cry because was missing de island, mon, sumthing fierce.

His accent would've made Smoky cried with happiness for he loved his Bob Marley and his island hits and always wanted to take a pilgrimage to his own litte mecca of paradice. Every word was a song and my inner Warcraft nerd giggled helplessly when he started doing spot on Troll impressions to lighten the mood.

We were on our own after an offical event planning meeting in the wake of my vacation and he gave me some tongue-in-ear-canal advice on coping with with the size differents of his huge frame. I didn't feel in any way threatened by the fact I was chugging brews with an ex-junkie convict who was so huge he could literally cradle me like a baby fully stretched in one of his gargantuan arms.

I'd love to say I'm exaggerating but either he was on illegal anabolics- which, judging by how he took to my Toxic Waste brew like a colourful fish to water would've made him hulk out even more- but it was nothing sinester in any way.

Turns out, hormone quirks run in his family and his dad, two brothers and grampies are both equally large if not more so than himself considering he's the baby. Must be something in those island strains, maybe, as I watched him scarf down a space brownie in one bite.

It had Pineapple Paradice, my favorite fruity, non-amnonia tinged strain in it after Smoky declared I was old enough to get blitzed and jam with him on my bass or better still, the fierce spiked-rimmed €1,050 drum kit I bought out of a mad instinct to be the female equilevency of David fucking Grohl when I was pushing my luck with my trust fund last week, burnt out from pimping the mill until it looked like the Battle Royal compond cross-polinated with the Nebuccunezzer and the Enclave Base.

Though we now had a small but scrappy army of roughly one-hundred odd randomers and friendly nutters to share out the majority of the running costs considering my one-time playground had been reclaimed for the pack, with the pack and for future generations of those exhiled from their clans, the future generation of swiftrunners and those who just needed to vent.

Even so, I was scared to push "Show Balance On Screen" on the ATM in case the numbers started flying backwards but by now, Cyphor and I were thick as thieves and though he was still a stuck up little German bastard (I glomped him when I heard the news because I'm a total Kraut-whore), we established a rapour that had a weird Coxian/Dorian vibe about it.

I, sad to say, am the Dorian in this mix, even if I am ridiculously awesome with my faithful though decidingly ratty looking first time custom built sniper.

Ziggy seemed to be telepathic or probably just utilizing his frighteningly eerie ingrained quirk to always pre-empt my thoughts on mad-cap weaponary.

He smiled, the shell-casing filling of Chuck Norris-esque levels of atomic win was gone from his canines and just pearly whites remained as he'd been getting cocky with his egg-shaped multicoloured pustule-firing Railgun, grinning with a knowing twinkling in his disarmingly skin-clashing hazel eyes over a spectacular 'kill' were one of our more flamboyent patient/zombies was fixed up with an exploding fake head that was his masterpiece up on our slowly blossoming Gallery of Gore section on the website when Ruthless accidently smacked him in the chops whilst hamming up her baton-twirling skills with a bokan, being the Asian pixie she was, and knocked it clean out of his mouth.

Ruthless was horrified, running to him in her self-made patchy but honest Go Go Yubari costume and she flung her arms around his neck, a hysterically funny gesture giving she was a tiny little Japanese thing with broken English but a taste for the bat-shit crazy and he looked like Chiozu trying to huge Broly if I might use an otaku analodgy...

The two of them, being exotic and something of a pair of novelties among our by and large predominently native shower of inglorious bastards, were looked upon as the "Specials"- the weapon expert/blacksmith and the crazy pixie with the rainbow mohawk, after my own punkish heart, who could barely string a sentence together but was so full of life you knew exactly what she was on about.

We got talking and he said there was a pseudo-voodoo game of shits and giggles he loved to play as a child were he used to make little (a hard image to ipicture: Manflesh Orc as a Boyflesh Orcling) wicker effeggies of people he liked to bitch about and then set them on fire.

Ziggs had an innate and crushing desire to building himself a fully working Flamer complete with fuel packs, retro engine parts for the components and an ironic use for a spent fire extinguisher as the barrell. I loved our creative brainstorm sessions over

He was swiftly turning out to become a mate for life with me and I looked at him like an older brother or a favoured, spoiling uncle who dotted on me. It was not hard to understand why.

We had a saying The Hole, born out of many great nights lying spent on the transparent blue plastic infla-a-couches (everything got stowed in the locks in the changing rooms and the more insane shit was under hulking Rasta-guarded lock and key in the motherlode that was named the Jefferson Memorial and Jones Soda Company Armoury.

Lord knows we drank fuckloads of that sugary nectar in our mock-game of death drinking games with my awesome cocktail skills.


	6. Chapter 6

I flapped my hands wildly, indulging my more strange, neurological quirks in the cave-like, windowless dim of my dominion and I stumbled around, my glasses crocked and cracked from where Sick Nick accidently tagged me with shrapnel from an unknownly critically malfunctioned gas-powered Desert Eagle that back-fired on him when I was loading up my Ziggy-seal-of-approval brand spanking new Alien Lazer Blaster that made the most delightful little pew-pew-pew-shawoop sound that Zigster had taken great liberty to build with a gakked sound file from my survalist bible of a game

It was a lucky hit and it the great Zombie Wolf smiled on me then, gifting me with reflexes sharp enough to peg what was happening before I lost an eye.

It was perfect training in the event of radioactive Zhu Zhu Hamster Holocast which was a running joke among our younger, greener compatriots.

I thought left couldn't get any better for I was hopelessly, irrevocably in L-O-V-E with an exotic, intriguing stone-cold Injun , I had my own army of lively troops to run riot with virtually every single night but I could never Jacob outright, painfully shy and retiring little wallflower as I am right now, ha! No, I wanted it to be a total shock for him and so I had Cyphor do something to disable any outsite IP tracking that might cause him to stumble upon my epic surprise.

He did something complicated with dummy servers showing green gibberish on our donatated sponsor wall from Harvey Normans who supported our cause of alternative rehab as they were having a "skag" problem in their car parks and we Elders flirted with the idea of forming an off shoot extermination call out service for flash-mobbing but with adequate notice so none of the little junkies could slap us with a civil suit for distubing the peace on their time slip.

Simon, who didn't like nicknames as he felt it would be funny to be indoctrained into our annals of Epic Win Yiffers with a perfectly ordernary name like Simon shining out like a sore thumb amongst the Rippers, The Gnashers, The Fangrlas and one screaming queen again ratted to by Smoky who turned up in a Goofy fur-suit and was subsequencially called Hyuk.

I would sit by the picket fence at the end of the pebble-dash drive watching Postman Shabbs run a playful mock gauntlet against our lumbering teddy-bear of a wolfhound-cross.

The world's most useless guard dog for he never made a peep. Looked the part with his huge, imposing stature but he was a ol' softshell and his kind, at times seemingly bemused brown eyes reminded me of my sweet Quilete.

All bark and none of the bite.

Then, my dreams came true about ooooh... four months before I turned sixteen, I think it was.

Never really cared for age or birthdays myself. As Smoky used to say, making my granny blush as he used her to demonstrate, embracing her tenderly in a beautiful, subdued display of a love that, as Homer Simpson once put so eloquently, echoed through the ages.

"_You're only as young as the person you're feelin'!"_

Ol' Smoky would say and in later years did I ever horribly abuse his 'good cop' stance and take it far too literally.

Jacob declared his own school decided to send him off as a "cultural embassidor" after a fundraising drive that he still felt mortified about to this day nd age.

When he came to visit close to a year into our entusiastic, snarky correspondance for six fleeting but wonderful weeks, we were inseperable as we frollicked in the fields, sneaked some of Smoky's 'special brownies' and watched old Muppet reruns on VHS whilst gasping for air with hysterics.

I robbed his first kiss off him and he was so adorably shocked I pinched his cheeks and made him run around screaming "Cooties"!

I cried like a smacked baby for a full week and a half when he had to eventually head back home to the Forks reservation.

We'd keep in touch by hand-written letters for the most part and I cherished the quirky pieces of incense-infused stationary, tickled by the wolf designs and the feathers and the little trinkets he would sent me.

Ohhh, It was all very sweet and lovely and old-fashioned and _shibby_ and even my grandmother approved of him- a feat on a pair with curing Aids and ridding the world of hunger in terms of achieveablity when it came to me and members of the opposite gender.

She waxed philosophical, softening her God-praising a smidgen over the years to say that he kept me out of trouble and gave me something to look forward to, to work towards reuniting with him and having the same groovy kind of romance, unlikely as it was, as herself and Smoky.

To this day I'm still dubious as to how they got together but Granny doesn't like to reveal herself as a former wild thing, fearing it might diminish her nun-like powers of guilt airbending.

This was to be a summer of new experiences, of revisting old memories and a beautiful if somewhat rounded face from my past. Maybe, if I was lucky, it would finally be my summer of love though judging by how thickly the rain pelted down the window, I doubted there's be much alfresco fun in the sun to be had.

I was no longer a greasy-faced, outwardly skeletal fifteen year old posuer with more eye-liner and angst than sense and social tact.

I'd turned eighteen this past October (guess what date!) and my biggest regret up to this point was drowning my pain of Jake's parting by taking the first vaguely unscruffy looking mongrel that had shambled out of the gutter long enough to rob me of my dignity, confidence, virginity and about €500 of pure salivia before he left me for some trashy Oompa Loompa with more tits than brains, leaving a parting gift of neurosis and having me feel even more wretched than before.

Even so, I poured my heart out to Jacob and he told me in a way that was just the right about of bluntly to move on, to put it down as a life experience, to learn from it and grow as tall as the sweeping marijana fields surrounding the quiet farm I called home. He was shocked by my growing confidence at first but as the years rolled in and we both upgraded from hamster-and-wheel dial up to the glory of 25 megabyte connections and glorious Skype, it was as though he was right beside me in every step, every breathe, every single waking thought in my multi-coloured head, two minds melding into one as I felt his spirit in the air around me.

He was like my own personal agony uncle and I trust him with my very life so it was only natural that when the chance came up to partake in another exchange, this time one that'd put me firmly in touch with him on a physical and, I hoped in my haze of lustful hormones, _sexual_ level, I lept at it.

Considering I'm the sort of girl who knows what she wants after two and a half years spent fumbling in the dark of night like a serial love rat racking up experience thanks to the bad influence of one too many American sex comedies yet still cries with hysterical giggles when forced to say "scrotum" in biology class, it could be a rather unique and hopefully, mutally appreciated experience of life, love and laughter.

Slinging a bag over each shoulder, I headed down the extending corridor towards the Arrival's lounge, not entirely sure what to expect. It was a good deal smaller than the terminas at Dublin Airport, which had recently been refurbished and was super shiny, futuristic and looked like it came straight of _2001:A Space Odyessy_ or something equally future-chic.

FIA was blander, institutionally grey and beige, as though the weather set the tone for everything in this town. I grimaced, hoping the grass beyond the airport was at the very least green and groomed.

Not even a weed grew on the drowned patches of '_fauna_'-if you could even call the single solitary old cactus I spied through a window stuck in a traffic island, lonely like a prickly scarecrow in a field of stark concrete-and it was so depressingly dull.

Exactly as I remembered from my turmultuous yet fleeting memories of youth.

It was far too quiet for a Sunday evening.

I counted twelve, maybe thirteen people as far as I could see with my dubious vision and that was just the bored looking cleaners poitering around the barren halls.

Pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose, I strolled to the luggage carousel, retriving my beaten up suitcase-the distinctively worn out blue moulded plastic one with a certain controversial F-word spray-painted in different silver fonts upon it, faded with age and wear, covered in a slew of stickers and bumpers- before I attempting to navigate the signs to the main enterence.

I didn't spend long trying to find my gentleman caller.

He was standing by the automatic doors looking very much like a wet dog in red Converse sneakers and khaki board shorts. The name on the makeshift cardboard sign he held was hopelessly smeared and he looked curious, confused even as dark chocolate-coloured eyes searched the terminal.

"Jacob Black?" I queried, arching an eyebrow. The guy was far too tall, too musculy and to devestatingly chiselled to be my Jakey-poos. He also seemed a touch too daring, I noted as my eyes swept across the appetising buffet of bare, taunt chest before me, decorated with a simply black lenght of leather cord with a bone of some description in the dip of collar-bone just below his large, quivering Adam's apple.

Who in their right mind would go shirtless on a day like today?

He was baby-faced despite looking like he was sculpted from a single log of rich mahogany and there was a searching look in his dark eyes.

The fresh-faced, lofty youth jumped at my voice, momentarily startled and the closer I came to where he stood, the more I quietly regreted the decision not to wear my stacked army boots. I was dressed for a comfy flight in lurid pink ballet pumps.

At five foot two, I felt like a midget.

Great Zombie Jesus! I baulked in the shadow he cast over me, blocking out the light of the dirty strips of flurescent luminescene in the high ceiling.

He was _huge_!

"Alexandra Sweeney?" his voice was far too young to match his body but I recodnized that bassy tone, prematurely broken not a month after we got Skype. I pegged it in in an instant, feeling a wry smile cross my lips.

"_How_ many times do I have to tell you, Jakey-bo-Bakey? I perfer to be called Lex."

My arm folded, I tried my best to appear dispondant, aloof and playing hard to get. Never be overtly eager, I told myself though the fact that he looked better than a pound of cherry chocolate Green & Blacks right about now certainly wasn't doing much to reinforce that train of thought.

The towering giant of a man-child blinked behind a dripping curtain of unbelievably sleek, shiny black hair that, giving his obvious tribal heritage, made him look like both of the lead vocalist/ guitar strumming indentical twins from _Extreme_, before his face broke out into a broad grin.

I... I want to lick his face. Is that weird?

"Funny, you don't _look_ like a guy despite your valient efforts!" he quipped brightly, giving me the once over and taking in my rakish, borderline emaciated figure. Yes, I'm a skinny little punk midget. It's a savage pain in the hole constantly being asked if I've an eating disorder. A _proper_ pain.

No-Tits Sweeney, that's my nickname. I don't have anorexia or anything. I get my figure from my granny. All the Sweeney lasses are delicate wee yokes.

We can shovel it down but our arses are reassuringly staunch and resolute in stubborn boniness.

Asschabs.

I exhaled, idly thumbing the euro-coin sized metal-rimmed holes in my ears, flapping my lips with playful irritance.

I mostly go by Alex, Lex or, giving my undying aliegence to a hot, overly hair-sprayed, spandex-clad bassist in one of my all-time favorite contemporary-yet-vintage bands- Lexxi Foxx.

Or , y'know, just plain' old Loot-as in Lex Luther- if I decided to shave my head when the mood strikes.

You'd think I was a schizo with all those monickers! Still, a tiger-lily by any other name...!

Suddenly feeling a touch self-conscious, I tugged the hem of my baggy, raggy old sweat-shirt down a touch lower, covering my jutting hips so as not to add yet another person-a gorgeous, exotic Native American person at that- to the bloated list in my Death-Note.

If only it were functional instead of purely asthetic in nature.

Life would be _so_ much sweeter...

A snerky sound escaped my lips and I folded my arms, taking in the sight of his bare chest, glistening with raindrops.

Not a half-bad sight to come home to, I thought with a smirk.

"At least I'm adeqately dressed for the weather." I poked Jacob in his sternum. He squealed adorably, surprisingly balmy to the touch; "Not that I'm _complaining_ 'bout the view but you look set to catch your death!"

"Ahhh, I'll be fine, 'Lex. I tend to run a lil' hot these days."

"I'd well believe it..." I rolled my eyes, pulling my Mac-In-A-Sack from my bag and chucking it at his head. "Cover yourself up, man. You're scaring the horses!"

"Harr-harr-harr." His voice, a husky bass tone -perfect for power ballading-was heavy with sarcasm but he dutifully obeyed like he oughta, tugging the semi-transparent blue plastic over his frame. It stopped just above his navel and I had to bite back a laugh. He was comically tall next to me. Vince Vaughn would've seemed positively dainty in comparision!

He brushed past me then, taking my suitcase in one hand and effortlessly carrying it towards a waiting taxi parked outside and I bristled slightly, miffed at his easy of carrying it despite my having fallen over the fecking case a handful of times as I lugged it around the silver shiny terminas of home.

I am nothing without my cheese-o-rama boxsets and apparent from clean underoos and a few bare necessities, the case was by and large chock full of dvds and video-games. We had plenty of convelescing with popcorn to do.

"It's good to see you again, Jacob." My hand found his cheek and patted it in a friendly gesture.

He averted his eyes bashfully for a moment and gave an awkward chuckle, his own hand squeezing my shoulder. He had Bambi lashes and I had a brief flash, wondering if the twin sisters he'd casually mention over the years looked just as handsome.

His grip was so much stronger than the last time I saw him.

I could practically _fee_l my bones creaking in protest but I said nothing, not wishing to cause him worry. He was something of a worrisport.

"You look _weird_ with short hair."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"You look like a Chia Pet." He lightly flicked a lock of napalmed hair from my eyes and I shook my head at the playful insult, giving him a punch to the shoulder. His arm felt hard as concrete, taunt and smooth. It was then I noticed how much he'd changed since the last time I saw him.

He was no longer the wide-eyed, stammering fourteen year old that had set my foolish heart all a-flutter that one, largely drizzle-free summer many moons ago when that faithful high-school exchange program thrust him into my life. God bless America and their giddy facination with all things Paddy-wacked.

I heard once that out of the four million of us on this titchy wee mud-caked rock we all call home, _fourty million_ people in America _alone_ claim Irish accestory so either they're hellbent on bragging rights for free Guinness on Arthur's Day or all the years spent munching carbo-rific spuds of energy have left us with untold physical stanima and the potency of the Liffey water in our national brew made us all fertile Myrthills.

Personally, I liked to think that it was a bit from all collumns.

Jacob's gangly, lanky limbs had filled out into tight knots of muscle and his deep ebony hair trailed to the small of his back in the slightest of waves, sticking to his forehead with the damp. Taller now, I barely stood flush with his elbow yet he didn't make a show of the fact, thank Zombie.

The next person to call me Short Arse was getting a boot to the goolies.

But still, Jacob knew that fact all too well over our lively correspondance throughout the years and I was heartened by his consideration, conscious or no.

He was a soaring yet gently slopeing mountain and a stunning, arresting one at that.

"How're your folks?" he said lightly as he stowed my luggage in the trunk and held open the door.

"Same as always." I replied, dejection in my tone, fixing my seatbelt into place as he joined me in the back of the cab. "Same shite, different day but for the most part, hemp seems to be by and large recession-proof. Until Biffo The Bully lays the smackdown on head shops, Ol' Smoky'll keep on blowing up his arse. Me Grammy's been rather poorly lately, though."

"Oh? Sorry to hear 'bout that. Nothing serious, I hope."

"The woman's seventy nine, Jake. A _paper cut_ is serious at her age. And, oh, doesn't she make a mountain out of an amoeba over it?" I sighed theatricly, swooning against him in an act that wasn't without its' truthfulness.

"Heh-heh. That's Edie to a fault! Insufferable but loveable ol' nutter. Still, sucks to hear she's not up to chasing you with a switch for daring to bat your lovely lashes at little ol' me! How's Smoky anyhow? Still bakin' those awesome brownies?" Jacob brushed his hair from his eyes and leaned back against the seat, studying me with interest.

I swallowed a lump, my mind wandering back to the thought of my grandparents.

The only family I had left on either sides, they had taken me on despite their advancing years and in turn, I had taken care of them, plugging away in a lively vintage record store and intergrated punk lounge on the Tallaght/ Blackrock border to ensue my dues were paid. It was fantastic money being an affulent part of Dublin and all, and my tips alone could've easily bught me a first class ticket on Virgin Atlantic. Still, as my Gran is so want to point out: _There's only so much money a person needs before they turn positively half-cocked!_

I already looked the part of a particularly femme-butch, Old School London Underground lezzer but I kept an wide open mind when it cam to the subject of sexuality, much to her immense Catholic chargin. My grandmother Edith always appeared to be a delicate little sparrow for as long as I knew her but in the last vision I had of her, when I had said my goodbyes this morning at the unfathomably early crack of noon, she seemed to be made of paper.

Small and slight, the simple movement of lifting her arm to wave me off looked as though it might break her into tiny pieces. She was on the way out, having been left crippled by the spinal curvatures I lived in daily quaking fear of inheriting from her side and the strange things it was doing to her organs, but I wasn't too worried.

She was a fiesty, stubborn woman who was tough as an old boot covered in nails, bred from Limerick's hardest landowner stock and gifted with the ability to charm the stink off a fart if she so choose. Equally, when it came to the sanctimonious matter of religion and the_ shame shame shame_ she forever harped on about, she had a stinging tongue that would make any scorpion spit with envy.

A ballchy, righteous aul shrew, I knew her as a mad ol' thing and we were thick as thieves whenever I toed the line-which was about 80% of the time, outward appearences and epic ninja skills necessary to shield her from my flourishing teen fumbles and the quiet rebellion that made up the majority of the remaining 20%. She would fight tooth and nail to the bitter end and I took comfort in that thought, even so far as in to pity the Reaper.

I'd pay good money to see him have his work cut out!

My disarmingly young-at-heart granfather, Jimmy (or Ol' Smoky Sweeney as he was known around town due to his organic hemp business that pulled in a steady trade), however, was another story entirely. A man who had spent the majority of his life as a hermit, traveling from place to place following rock bands as a casual roadie-for-hire and getting utterly blitzed along the way.

Many a night, we would lie in the yard, surrounded by nothing but flat mountain planes and fields all around, gazing up at the stars and waxing lyrical about his mad-cap escapades back in the Sixties and Seventies when flower-power, funk, soul, punk and rock were the forerunnerss of a discontented Dub who asked too many questions and whose only crime was that of loving a good solid laugh or two.

A reedy man with mirth in his heart who looked like a hippy Gandalf-or, if you want to get even more accurate again, Dumbledore if he smoked too much pixie dust and spent a whole year slavishly following The Grateful Dead across America.

Usually dressed from head-to-toe tie dye and Hawaiian print even in the biting chill of winter.

He didn't give a shit about anything but the craic and for that, I worshipped the ground he walked on.

He was looked upon with great affection about the town. His biggest joy in life was Saturday evenings down in the _The Greasy Pig_ when he would bring out his treasured guitar and with a lungful of pre-gig reefer smoke, have everyone in tears of laughter as he regalled them with eager covers of Kevin Bloody Wilson tunes.

He was a crazy old hippy and I loved him dearly.

Without his zest, without the humour and the light-hearted warmth that contrasted against Grandma Edith's stiff upper lip, that old farmhouse on the outskirts of the city would be little more than an empty, lifeless shell.

He too had been in less than perfect health lately. A smoker all his life (both of tobacco and a certain more illicit subtance he grew in a small shack at the end of the yard), he was rarely seen without his pipe but had taken to cutting back in the last number of weeks on the doctor's order.

It was a grave concern of mine but one he regularly downplayed.

Usually by baking brownies.

I did, however, wonder if the notion of his illness played a role in encouraging me to accept Jacob's offer of spending the summer with him. I didn't want to leave Smoky if he was one foot on the stairway to Heaven but he was nothing if not stubborn and refused to let me indulge the worrisome thoughts swirling through my mind, even going so far as to buy me the plane ticket for my eighteenth birthday.

"_What's the use in having money if you can't go an' enjoy it, Pudge?" _he said, using a family nickname from when I was a bouncing, squishy baby-the only time in life i've ever been chubby cheeked- when I protested the astronomical cost of air travel. Ol' Smoky would hear none of it. I often wondered if perhaps he was overcompensating, doting on me in a way he thought had died with his daughter-my mother-all those years ago.

Not that I ever complained-

"Sexy Lexxi?" Jacob's voice jolted me from my thoughts and I gasped as his large hand brushed the bare skin of my knee through the fashionable rip in my jeans. Heat rolled off him in that tiny sweep and his fingers were smooth against the calloused skin of my shins. My teeth caught my bottom lip.

I'm being awefully hyper-sensitive today, I thought. Not a bad sensation but still. Driven to distraction an' all...

"Sorry, pet. Just a lot on my mind..." I murmured, feeling sheepish. No doubt I must've been coloured scarlet with an all over body blush. Jacob chuckled softly and his hand gave a light squeeze.

A shiver rippled up my spine.

"I said, are-you-hungry? Have you even heard a single word I've said?"

"Hungry?" I grimaced, tasting the remnants of airline stroginoff congealing on my tongue. No amount of sugary tea could wash that god-aweful taste away of other people's farts. My stomach growled with the prospect of a proper slap-up meal and I nodded.

"Starving, more like."

"You're in luck. The rain's forecast to ease up in a little while so we're having a barbique down on the reservation. I told the guys you were coming-"

"In-uuuu-eeeennndoooo!" I yelled with a cackle and we fist-bumped, falling back into the same childish, potty-humoured rapour we engaged in over Skype and, in rare moments, Webcam Silly Hat Masquerade!

"Reservation, huh?" I blinked at him, feeling one of my eyebrows quirk as I was still half-way lost in thought but lucid enough to be cheeky.

"Yeeeess. I'm Native American, remember?" He poked me in the ribs with a long, slender finger and I let out an involentary squeal, squirming at his touch.

"I thought that was just a line you were trying! Y'know, tugging at my girlish heart-strings an' all that?"

"_Me_? Try it on with _you_? Never!" Jacob recoiled in mock offense, his dark eyes twinkling with mischief. "Your grandmother would crease me!"

"You're a _douche_!" I retorted, mimicking his dude-bro accent. He snorted with laughter and slapped his thigh, pulling me into a one armed hug.

"You haven't changed one little bit, 'Lex!"

"Sure, weren't we only exchanging Kerry man jokes last night! Fecksake, Jake! You act like I've been gone a lifetime!"

He hugged me closer and I properly swooned. He was wearing a potent yet subtle blend of cinnamon, fire, sea-salt and something else I couldn't quite place but it made my mouth water.

"Three years is eternity." He said warmly, his breath a thrilling purr. "I cried like a one legged man at kick-boxing try-outs when I had to leave."

I snorted, loving the way his bubbly yet bassy accent shaped one of the many one-liner Dublin-born quips I'd instilled in him. He's be fourty shades of green before the week's out.

"I remember you were very stoic. _P-p-p-pokkker-faaaaaced!_" I shrilled out the seminal lyric in my best Eric Cartman voice and his eyes scrunched with hysteria.

"_She's got to lurve no baaah-deeey!"_

"Looper."

"I learned from the master." He kissed my cheek affectionatly and nuzzled. Though the weather outside was woeful, there was beautfiul, sweltering sunshine warming the cockles of my foolish heart.


	7. Chapter 7

The taxi journey was a swift one and before I knew it, we had pulled up outside a charming little wooden house on the end of a quiet neighbourhood surrounded by a thick forest of sequioa trees. True to his prediction, the rain had ebbed away, leaving behind light grey clouds that parted just enough to give a glimpse of evening sunlight.

Daylight savings. It's a wonderful thing.

It was warm out, the air surprisingly humid and I soon found my sweat-shirt to be a touch too stifling for my frame. Pulling it off, I draped it over my arm and followed Jacob up the ramp to the hall door. Before he had a chance to take his key from his pocket, the screen pushed open and the squeak of wheels on wood caused me to look up.

I jumped, unprepared for what I saw.

Billy Black was like an older, slightly melted-at-the-edges version of Jacob in a way that suggested he'd done a great deal of sun worshipping in his younger days. They both had the same combination of brown eyes and black hair, the same strong jaw and tapered nose. When Billy smiled, his skin wrinkled like crepe paper around his mouth and eyes, showing pearly white teeth that contrasted sharply against his mahogany skin-which was especially pock-marked in the hollows of his cheeks.

He was dressed in a black Stetson trimmed with a tribal bone motif around the brim, faded deniums and a fringed leather jacket. In my silly, chirpy, feel-good hormone-swept brain, he reminded me of a cuddly Danny Trejo, sans 'tashe and I afforded myself just five seconds to witness a flash-montage of him cocking a shotgun and being ridiculously awesome.

It was then I noticed he happened to be sat in a wheelchair and the montage vapourised.

Having only ever spoken to him via Skype, I was a little thrown by this but soon relaxed as he reached to shake my hand.

His grip was firm but gentle, his hands disarmingly smooth in spite of the obvious sun damage.

"_Dia guit agus failte roche_!" he said brightly, his pronounciation of _"Hello and welcome!"_ in my native tongue sounding rich and other-worldy for he had a more distinctly Injun accent to Jacob and I sighed dreamily.

It looked set to be a big day for swooning. I smacked myself in the face, passing off the action as fanning myself from the uncomfortably prickly heat.

Bad, very bad, Alex. Don't do it.

Swooning is... _baaaaaaad._

Billy was beaming up at me and I felt a very tiny stroke of ego to be someone tall in a conversation for once. He's in a friggin' wheelchair, you goon! Be nice! I quickly rearranged my face to an expression of neutral warmth.

"...Err, did I say that right? My Irish isn't up to scratch..."

I chuckled throatily, hitching my satchel further on my shoulder.

"To pronounce it correctly;" I deadpaned; "I would have to pull out your tongue."

"Ha! Jake told me you were fiesty!"

I could hear the blush in the boy's voice as Jacob shuffled beside me. "Daaaad..."

"Welcome to Forks, Miss Sweeney." Billy rolled backwards, pulling open the door as he went and motioning us both inside. "Hope the flight wasn't too turbulent. We get a lot of thunderstorms this time o' year."

"It was fine." I said, wiping my feet on the mat before following him in; "Safest way to travel, or so I'm told."

"I don't know. I've seen _Snakes on a Plane..._"

Jacob quipped off-hand and I grinned widely, reaching to fish through my handbag. Curling my fingers around the little box, I pulled it out and thrust it towards him.

"That reminds me! I brought over that movie I mentioned! I haven't watched it yet- I was saving it to see your reaction."

"_Megashark Vs Giant Octopus_?" he recited the title, a dubious expression on his face. The expression was mirrored by Billy and he shook his head in amusement, heading into the kitchen.

"You kids and your crazy movies! Whatever happened to the days of Lon Chaney or Bella Lugosi? Now _they_ were masters of their art!" he reached forward, grabbing a beer off the low table. "Urgh. Disgusting how dumbed down horror movies are getting. It's all cheap shocks and flashy production values. Where's the suspense? The intrigue? Or the plot, for that matter?"

Leaning against the wall, Jacob nodded in agreement as I sat down next to his father, unable to keep from shivering with delight over his admittedly rare viewpoint.

"Oh, I _know_ what you mean! I rarely watch any of the new blockbusters these days. Give me my Hammer Horror boxsets over the latest tired rehash of Saw any day!" I replied with a laugh, leaning my elbow on the table and propping my chin in my hand.

Jacob's brow furrowed slightly and he gave a slight sniff.

"You like..._vampire _movies?"

"_Love_ 'em. The schlockier, the better. Christopher Lee is a god."

"Eh, I'm partial to a bit of Vincent Price myself. Or Hitchcock!" Billy said brightly, sipping at his beer can with a thoughful expression.

I found myself rolling my eyes, a hand pushing my over-processed fringe from my face.

"Eh, Hitchcock is a little too mainstream for my tastes. Don't get me wrong, Billy. The man is a cinematic _genius_ an' all but I like my horror movies with a thick crust of cheese. Are you familiar with the works of Troma-?" I started, only to be cut short by the sound of Jacob clearing his through roughly.

I glanced at him, slightly bewildered.

He must be feeling put out, I thought as I felt my cheeks flush with embarassment. I always did have a tendency to go off on a tangrent when met with a subject I felt passionately about. It was both a blessing and a curse to find someone just as nerdy and dedicated about movies as I was, yet it came at the expense of many friendships over the years.

People had little patience for the ramblings of a nerdy alt-girl with a love of old movies these days.

"I'll..er.. show you your room." Jacob mumbled, nodding towards an archway leading onto a wooden staircase with an electric lift built up along the wall. Before I could utter another word, the tall, tanned mountain of muscle was hauling my luggage up the steps, disappearing into the room at the end of the upper hallway.

Billy chuckled softly, rolling to my side and giving my hand a light pat.

"Ah, pay me no mind, Jake's just eager to get you all to_ himself_!"

"Oh-ho? With all due respect, Billy, I don't really think of Jake like that!" I spluttered, feeling heat rise on my cheeks. Not that I would ever freely admit it but I did adore Jacob. He was so much more interesting than the brain-dead cretins clogging up my hometown-smarter, funnier and a damn sight more good looking.

Oh, Alex. Don't think such things!

"No? Shame! He talks about you all the time. When he heard you were coming to stay, I swear, I was all set to put him on Ritalin at the pace he was going. Cleaned the house from top to bottom an' all!" the old patriarch of the Black family nudged me playfully in the hip.

"He adores you, y'know. He won't freely admit the fact but a father can always tell when his son is smitten! Especially considering how he bought new bed-sheets an' _everything_!"

"R-right. That's not awkward at all!" I mumbled, scuffing the toes of my shoes on the hardwood floor. Billy gave a throaty laugh and cast me a side long glance, studying me with earnest.

"To be perfectly honest, you're not quite what I was expecting." 

"Oh? Not living up to your impeccable standards, am I?" I gasped with mock horror, a hand flying to rest over my chest as I returned his gaze with mirth. He shook his head and thumbed his chin, looking thoughtful.

"I mean no offense, dear. It's just... well, you do have a certain look about you."

"Hmm? And what would that be, Billy?" 

"You look kind of _dangerous_, to be perfectly honest." the old man said gently, casting me a smile that was subtly apologetic. I chuckled then, sweeping rogue locks of hair from my eyes.

"Trust me, you wouldn't be the first to think that." Reaching to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, I began to ascend the staircase. "Don't worry, good sir. I'm all bark and no bite."

"I find that hard to believe, Alex..."

"Well, if you want me to give Jake a nip or two, you don't have to ask twice!"

"Ahem..." Jacob coughed none-too-subtly, leaning against the door frame, his face flushed with mortification.

"Your chambers await, madam!" He made a show of bowing low, his hair brushing the floor for a brief moment as he averted his gaze. I snorted with ill-surpressed laughter and headed inside, closing the door behind me.

The room was large, cosy with a seated bay window over-looking a pleasent view of the woodlands. In the centre, a gigantic double bed took centre stage, covered with a mass of purple sheets and blankets of varied shades, contrasting nicely against the eggshell blue of the walls. Native American art adorned the walls and a small dream-catcher dangled over the headboard, black feathers swaying lightly in the breeze from the window.

Jacob sat on the edge of the bed, watching as I closed the door behind me and stood contemplating my surroundings.

"He'll never leave you alone now, y'know. My Dad's a fiend for the oldies." he said with a small note of irritation in his voice. Shaking my head, I sat down beside him and took to emptiying the contents of my handbag upon the bedsheets.

"Your dad is awesome. Don't be so quick to write him off, Jake." I retorted, sifting through the mess of tissues, make-up compacts, passport and random junk until I found my inhaler. With a quick blast, my lungs relaxed once more, the creeping threat of tightness vanishing before it had a chance to take over.

"I'm so glad you're here, 'Lex." His hand found my shoulder and patted it gently, his face sincere and filled with softness. "I missed you."

"You just spoke to me yesterday, Jake!"

"You_ know _what I mean." his hand slid up to brush against the bristles at the base of my skull and I found myself shivering at his touch. Normally, I hated it whenever someone touched my hair but there were always exceptions to the rule. Jacob's hands were large and burly but smooth, his grip gentle as he cradled my head, eyes taking in my face.

It had no doubt changed signifigantly since the last time he beheld it.

I always prided myself on being an experimental girl when it came to outward appearences. Much to my grandmother's immense chagrin, I was one who grew bored quickly of the conventional, of the normal and ordinary. In the space of three years I had gone from the girl next door to the girl your mother warned you about.

My hair was my main vice.

Whilst other kids took to smoking, drinking, cutting or sleeping around to silence their inner demons, I perfered to hack at my locks, smothering my scalp with chemicals until it burned with the delectable tang of peroxide.

The last time Jacob saw me, my hair was in a somewhat natural state- long, dull, lanky tendrils of auburn-red hanging to my shoulders.

Bland.

Boring.

Now, those locks were cropped short, shaven down save for a seven-inch tuff in the centre of my head and a blunt fringe that skimmed the over-plucked arches of my eyebrows. Bleached to an inch of its' life, my hair was currently a blank canvas of platinum blonde, my mohawk flat for the time being.

It was easy to understand the surprised expression on his face.

No doubt he had an altogether different mental image of how the years had changed me. Even so, he didn't seem as repulsed by my quirky appearance as other people were so want to point out. His hand dropped down to the small of my back and I couldn't stiffle the sigh from my throat.

His hands were so warm and inviting. Inwardly, I yearned for the feel of his embrace, for him to hug me as tightly as he did that day at the Departure's gate all those years ago. He had aged beautifully, his awkward, gangly frame filling out to create a fine specimen of beefcake.

The thought made me snort with laughter and I had to bite my lip. "Missed you too, pet." I managed to get out, my gaze meeting his. He let out a happy sigh and reached to flick at the flattened tendrils of my cropped hair, intrigue etched upon his face.

"I can't believe you shaved it..!" 

"What's the matter, Jake? You perfer girls with long hair, hmm?" A snort of derision escaped me, masking the pounding in my chest; "In all the years you've known me, have I ever been anything other than conventional?" 

"No, I suppose not." He mused, moving to flip his own hair over his shoulder. The action caused a curious knot to form in my stomach.

"Still, it won't exactly go down a treat at school."

I grimaced.

I had tried not to think of that fact.

It wasn't all to be fun and games this summer. Aside from visiting Jacob, my trip served a more practical purpose. As part of the foreign exchange program, I was required to spend a few months attending Forks Academy, intergrating with the locals and pretending to express a keen interest in biology.

I was to become a student in the cut-throat world of American high school and oh, how I dreaded it. The cliques, the in-fighting, the bitchiness, the sterotypes and the xenophobia. No-one said it was going to easy and I certainly didn't entertain the fact but now that I was here, the reality was swiftly settling in.

A groan escaped me then and I found myself flopping back on the bed as my hands flew to my face.

"Urk. School. Do not want. It can feck right off with itself!"

"Tough titties. You still have to put in at least an eighty percent attendence rating before you can pass this year." 

"I know, I know...still. A right pain in the gee it is." 

The dark haired teen arched one full eyebrow at me, sprawling out on his stomach. "I... don't know what a gee is but I'm going to assume it's something very dirty." 

"Not if you shower first..." I said off-hand, relishing the confounded expression on his face.

Ahh, Americans. They're fun to mess with.

Tweaking his nose playfully, I found myself poking the plastic pocket over his breast and he squirmed awkwardly, a chuckles escaping him.

"S-so, barbique!" he managed to get out, his face magenta with bashfulness. Clearing his throat, he sat upright and tugged the too-tight plastic mac from his frame.

"Yes'm. Whatever should I wear?" A gasp of mock horror escaped me as my eyes swept over the clothes swathing my frame: vintage, acid-washed jeans with self-made holes shredded into the knees. A black skinny-fit t-shirt with a "_Steel Panter- Hole Patrol World Tour_" motiff. A galaxy of beaded bracelets, the occasional leather band breaking up the walls of colour snaking up my arms.

Jacob's eyes roamed over me, full of intrigue. He thumbed his bottom lip with thought and smiled broadly. His canines were pointed, I noted.

"A garbage bag." 

"Oh, shush! I'm washed and dressed, aren't I?"

"I dunno, 'Lex. You smell pretty ripe to me!"

I smacked him in the face with a pillow, a noise of offense escaping my lips. "Excuuuse me!" 

"Kidding! Kidding! Don't hit me! I bruise easily!" he cried, flailing wildly as I pelted him with a lump of cotton. Rolling my eyes, I glances around the room, reaching for my little go-to tub of moulding putty. A wooden door just by the full-lenght mirror near the five-drawer armoire in the corner of the room looked promising.

Sure enough, when I got up from the bed and pulled it open, I was pleased to find a small ensuite bathroom greet my curiousity. Jacob quickly left the room, uttering something or other about helping his father with the laundry. I bid him a swift goodbye and closed the door with a low click.

I relieved myself first before freshing up.

The medicine cabinet was mirrored and a quick, inquistive glance within yielded little of interest other than a loofah, a congealed lump of lavender-scented soap and a small travel-sized first aid kit.

I leaned against the basin, studying my reflection.

I need a trim, I thought as my fingertips brushed the bristles at my temples. It was so quick to grow out, the bone-coloured fruits of my attempts at nuking it into oblivion clashing with the muddy red regrowth. Fingers coated with a generous dollop of gel, I set about sculping that seven inch tuff into a series of spikes, tapering the tips into letal points of napalm blonde.

A few split ends jutted from my fringe and I smoothed them out, tweaking here and fluffing there until my hair looked nothing short of gloriously punk rock. My glasses had fogged up so I cleaned them up with a handful of toilet paper, setting them once more on the bridge of my nose.

They were a necessary nuisence.

Sure, I could easily wear contact lens if I chose but the very thought of poking myself in the eye with either finger or nail was more than enough to make me shudder in revulsion. It wasn't that my sight was degenerating or anything-nothing more serious than a slight blurring at the edges of my vision but it was a problem that had plagued me to no end.

I couldn't get a driving license for it and it was a bone of much contention to have to rely on public transport all the time. Then there was the "specky four eyes" comments, though they were usually far more imaginative, scathing and hurtful than that old schoolyard chestnut.

My green eyes narrowed in the pointed face relected in the medicine cabinet.

There was no getting away from the slings and arrows of narrow-minded simpletons, forever trapped in a beige, nineteen fifities-era existance of banality, Catholic guilt and crushing conservitism.

Sure, I can ignore it all I like, shrug it off like rain on my shoulders but every so often, a little bit of the criticism creeps in to taint me. It's never from anyone signifigant- just faceless idiots incapable of seeing past surface appearences.

No matter how tough I think I'm getting, it still hurts.

With that thought, I found myself flattening my mohawk. No use drawing further attention to myself. Not until I've scoped out the feel of the town at the very least. If there's one thing the movies have thought me, these small towns did not take well to outsiders, much less onces with quirky hairstyles and three-inch gauges in their ears.

The water ran smoothly along the basin and I washed out the wax, lamenting the waste of product. There was a smidgen left in the tub. Perhaps later I might show Jacob the full glory of my mohawk but for now, when everything was still so fresh and new, I thought it best to thread softly.

You only get once chance at a first impression, so to speak.

I ran my head under the water for a moment, letting the cool liquid wash the fatique and heavy foundation from my skin. Beneath the mask, I was deathly pale-like a porcelean doll. No amount of sun could bring colour to my skin-I was virtually albino.

Typical Irish complexion. Revered by women everywhere, loathed by myself.

"Now is not the time for silly neurosis." I told myself, scowling at my reflection. Towel drying my hair, I ruffled it up enough to make it resemble something of an asymetrical crop. It was nothing if not adaptable, though for a brief moment, I flirted with the idea of shaving it all off completely.

I'd done it once before and it was a deeply liberating experience.

Granted, I did get the odd "Sinead O' Connor" comment on more than one occasion...

Stop rambling, Alex.

I headed back into the room and opened out my suitcase to find a change of clothes. My current set was heavy with the scent of stale breath, baby sick and farts from the aeroplane and the denium did little to help with the heat that was beginning to stifle me.

I settled on a simple white cami and a pair of cropped combats, spraying on some Little Angel perfume before pulling off my army boots and replacing them with a pair of flip-flops. The weather outside the window had dramaticly improved, the heady grey clouds giving way to bright streaks of yellow, purple and orange as the sun dipped low over the tree tops.

As I adjusted the gauges in my ears, my eyes caught sight of a movement among the darkened brush. At first, I dismissed it as a trick of the light, a small animal of some description but it happened again.

Slower, deliberate as though it noticed my pressence.

I stood at the bay window, staring down into the black shadows of the sequioa trees.

Darkness...

...But for a pair of blood-red eyes shining like rubies.


	8. Chapter 8

The scent of salt was heavy on the air.

I inhaled it greedily, savoring the notes of sand, seaweed and thunder clouding my senses. Such a beautiful smell, one that bolstered my appreciation of nature's glory. Seated upon a log of driftwood, bleached almost as white as my hair by the unforgiving sun, I looked out beyond the bay and closed my eyes, taking in the gentle lap of waves on the shore.

It was so peaceful here.

Why did I ever doubt my decision?

I wanted to sit on the shore forever, losing myself in the low crash of waves breaking against the wooden pillars but I knew it was a difficult thing to achieve. Jacob's friends refused to give me five minutes of peace, so intrigued by my pressance as they were.

I don't know what the guy had told them about me but I was met with a chorus of cat-calls, wolf whistles and good natured ribbing when he first introduced me. Cue many off-colour jokes, playful ribbing of my accent and a couple of obligitory "_I'm the leeeeprechaaaunnn!_" jibes. Hell, at one point through the beach-side barbique, there was a rousing chorus of "Whiskey In The Jar", swiftly followed by a tongue-in-cheek rendition of"Jake and Alex Sittin' In A Tree."

I could've punched them.

Thankfully, I need'nt have bothered expending the energy for Jacob made short work of any untoward comments. He seemed to visably bristle at the words, his cheeks puffed and red with indignity as he matched witty quip with sharp jibe, unrelenting until the others soon gave up and took to skimming pebbles along the water.

Jacob siezed the opportunity to get me alone and as we walked bare-foot along the shore, I felt relaxed enough to drop my guard for a moment, twining his hand with my own.

It was a privilage I rarely afforded to anyone, even to my grandparents. I wasn't sure exactly why I avoided such closeness but under normal circumstances, even a hug was enough to make me feel deeply uncomfortable.

With Jacob, though, everything felt natural.

Everything fell into place.

We had kept in touch through the wonders of emails, instant messaging and the occasional handwritten letter over the years so it was easy to fall into a friendly rapore with him. Even so, having spent so long building an image of him in my head, gleamed from the sound of his voice at the end of the phone and the few times he managed to get his webcam working, it was still a shock to the system seeing him all grown up.

He seemed to sense my searching eyes and as he slowed his pace to a standstill, his smile was inquistive.

"It's rude to stare, y'know."

"You're making it rather difficult for me. Shirtless. Ripped. Shaggy haired. I daresay you masterminded the perfect make-over in a bid to impress me!"

"Did it work?" He said gently.

Though his tone was light, there was no hiding the note of anticipation in his voice and I found my breath hitching in my throat. My crush on him had dulled through lack of physical contact but as he stood before me, all smiles and dashing good looks, I couldn't help but swoon, long dormant embers springing to life to embibe me with a flustered heat.

"Careful, now!" I smirked lopsidedly at him, reaching to curl a tendril of silky black hair around my index. Looking at it with intrigue, I cocked an eyebrow.

"How did you get so tall? You know anabolic steroids are illegal, right?"

He snorted, lolling his head to onside. His hair brushed my arm and I sighed, loving the feel of it against my skin. Damn him. I should never have told him of my one weakness!

"I assure you, I'm one hundred percent _au natural._ Growth spurts are a glorious thing!"

"That may be, Jake but I've an aweful pain in me neck tryna look you in the eye!"

"Then perhaps I might kiss it better?" He teased, pursing his lips. I gave the lock of hair in my hand a sharp yank and he yelped in alarm.

"Don't." It had meant to sound taunting but it came out a great deal rougher than I intended and Jacob visably flinched. Guilt stabbed at me and I released the wayword lock of hair, dropping my hand back to his and giving him a gentle squeeze.

He had made no secret of his affection towards me. It had been so easy to flirt over the internet, the awkwardness of seeing each other face to face removed from the equation. Three years it had been in the making, this infatuation, and it had finally culminated in a reunion after so long.

I _wanted_ to take it further, to feel his lips on my own but I was afraid.

It was one thing speaking of it in casual, flirtatious banter behind the relative anominity of a computer monitor. It was quite another seeing him in the flesh, seeing the man he had become. He knew all my secrets, all my hopes, dreams and ambitions for the future.

I in turn knew his.

No stone was left unchecked.

Yet as he looked at me with expectancy in his chocolate-coloured eyes, I couldn't help feel that something was off, that maybe he was holding back from me. Maybe it was to do with the nervous tremor coursing through his fingers or the strained knots of muscle in his neck.

Whatever the reason behind the curious feeling, I held back by my bare fingertips, waiting for him to make the first move.

He seemed to understand.

As though I'd uttered the thought aloud, he had perched me upon a low, flat rock before sitting down beside me. Our hands were still entwined, still interconnected and his grip tightened just enough.

"L-Let's not make things weird, Jake." I somehow managed to mumble but the words were half-hearted, dying swift deaths on my tongue. He leaned in close enough for me to feel the heat radiating from his being and I instinctively arched towards it. He smelt, strangely enough, of a dog that had been lying in the sun all day .

Not unpleasent, it was a scent that reminded me of home, of my little dog Boycie after a day spent wandering through the fields beyond the house. His free hand tilted my chin and I swallowed back a knot of uncertainty.

"Things are already weird enough, 'Lex..." Jacob said faintly and before I knew it, he was edging in for the kill.

Part of me wanted to pull away, to put an end to his advances before they had a chance to take hold but another side of me, the reckless fairy in the red corset and devil horns, told me to go for it, to taste the swell of his lips and claim him as my own, putting an end to three torturous years of longing.

So close.

I could taste the honey barbique on his breath.

So very close...

"Damn it.."

He exhaled sharply, the air warm on my face as he pulled away abruptly. I blinked, confusion clouding my senses as I followed his gaze towards the campfire. His merry band of companions had gone quiet, the mirth of the night all but vanishing until there was only tension.

Jacob's jaw stiffened and it was clear he was clenching his teeth.

"Jake? What..?"

"Stay here." It was a demand rather than a request, his voice rough and edged with a malice that betrayed his gentle nature. Before I could utter a word of protest, he had sprinted up the beach to the camp fire, joining his friends in a huddle of hushed whispers and looks of unease.

I stood up, brushing down my combats and slipped my flip-flops back on, ignoring his order for now as curiousity overrode any shreds of common sense. At the fringes of the group, I stood by as they conversed in low, muted tones.

"Chase him out. He should know better than to encrouch on our land." I heard one of the larger men grunt. I think his name was Paul. Another, smaller and a touch skinnier, nodded in approval, punching his hand with staunch determination on his face.

"This night just keeps getting better!"

"Jacob, what is it?"

He turned to me then, his face hard and cold in the dying light of dusk. I saw the veins bulge in his forehead, the straining sinew in his neck and I shuddered, fearful of the poorly-disguised rage brewing behind brown eyes.

"It's not safe." His gaze never broke mine and as we stood staring at one another, the air suddenly grew a great deal colder.

"Someone please tell me what in the name of fuckery is going on?"

"Just some punk-ass kid tryna break up the party." The tall one who may or may not have been called Paul replied cooly, giving me an apologetic look. He waved a huge hand dismissively and let out a wry laugh. "Relax. It's nothing we can't handle."

My arms folded over my chest and I cocked my head to the side with interest.

"Oh? Someone giving you grief, Jake?" A smirk pulled at my lips; "Who do I get to kill?"

"Stay out of this, 'Lex. I'm serious. This..." he spat the word as though it were poison on his lips; "..._person_ is armed to the teeth. I'll never forgive myself if you got hurt."

"Honey, I spent eleven years living in _Tallaght_ of all places. I've seen people getting shot, stabbed, run over and cluster-fucked on a twice-daily basis. Whatever it is, I can handle it-"

"Yeah, yeah. You're tough as an old boot..." Jacob sighed in exasperation, raking a hand through his hair. "Even so, I doubt your folks would be pleased to have you come home in a body bag. Just go back to my place, okay? Please?" His free hand petted my shoulder and I saw fear mingled with the anger in his eyes, his face softening just enough to afford a comforting smile.

"Go watch that movie you bought. This won't take long."

"But what about you?" I squeezed him none-too-gently; "You honestly can't expect me to sit idly by while you tackle some knuckle-head with a Kalashnikov-!"

"Actually, my European friend;" Jacob said confidently as he noted the crinkle between my brows; "You seem to forget that there are over a half-dozen of us and one of them. It's no contest."

"Don't get cocky. One man can make a hell of a mess. Just look at Chuck Norris!" I snapped back, cheeks puffing with irritation. I'm not a violent person, in all fairness but when it comes to the safety of close friends, I'm more than happy to put my life on the line to protect them. Even if it means having to fork out on tons of concealer to cover up the shiners...

He chuckled airly and ruffled my hair playfully before bumping my shoulder as he stalked past. "Just stay by the fire where its' safe. I promise I'll be back in five minutes."

"You better be!" I huffed, flopping onto a large rock;

"'Cause I'm not going in after your sorry arse!"

Sleep did not come easy to me that night but it was understandable, giving the circumstances. Unlike my bed at home, this mattress was a touch too firm and the excess of sprawl space took some getting used to. It also didn't help that my mind was clouded with worry over the incident at the reservation.

True to his word, Jacob had not taken long but when he returned to the group, he was bleeding from a shallow cut to his bicep and his left eye was beginning to swell. I tried to pull the truth from him but he was nothing if not stubborn, cooly playing down his injuries in the hopes I would drop the subject.

As much as I poked and prodded him for information, his lips were sealed and it was with much frustration that I stalked off to bed. Whatever it was, it's over now, I told myself.

It couldn't have been much if Jake doesn't wish to talk about it. Still, I couldn't help but worry and the anxiety in my thoughts did little to easy my restlessness.

Just when I was beginning to nod off, a light shove roused me from an uneasy slumber.

"Mmm, whuh-?"

"How do you like your eggs?"

I squinted in the it was ungodly early or the shutters were sealed tight. It was hard to tell. Sitting upright, I rubbed the fatique from my eyes and reached out to punch him. My hand found his shoulder and he gave a yelp so I can only assume I touched on his wound.

"Why'd ya wake me?" I groaned. My face felt like mush. "I was just nodding off now.."

"Oh, sorry. Having trouble sleeping?" the mattress creaked under Jacob's weight and I had to resist the urge not to shove him off. Urgh. Mornings. I hate them bitterly.

"Yeah, no thanks to you! Fecksake, Jake! What happened last night?"

"I told you, it's nothing. Just a rival clan tryna stir things up."

"Jake, if you're in some kind of trouble-"

"Lex." His hands found my shoulders and gave them a tight squeeze. I found myself wincing, unused to the strenght of his grip. "Lex, I know you're worried but trust me on this. This has been going on for years between our families and it's nothing got to do with you. Just stay out of it, okay? I don't want to tell you again." His tone was calm but curt and as I squinted in the dim light, I could just make out the hard line of his face.

"Jacob."

"Don't go losing sleep over it." He stood up and stomped to the window. A sudden burst of white light blinded me momentarily and I let out a string of curses, my eyes stinging.

"Graah! It's buuuurrrns us!" I rasped in my best Gollum impression, wrenching the sheets over my head. I could hear him tut and with one swift yank, he had tugged the sheets clean off the bed. I couldn't help but scream- all I had on was my underwear and that didn't include a bra.

"Oooh, nice view!" he quipped brightly, rubbing his hands together. I chucked a boot at his head.

"Omigod, get the **fuck** out!"

"Going! Going!" he sprinted to the door, cackling gleefully at the sight of my semi-clad form. "Now _there's_ a sight to wake up to!"

"_Out_!"

After I washed quickly, I pulled on a pair of baggy blue cargo shorts and my vintage _Blockheads_ t-shirt that was all but faded seven ways from Sunday by constant wear. A glorious smell of fried bacon greeted me as I descended the staircase, along with the sight of Jacob-once again shirtless and dangerously close to a nasty scald-fussing over the stove.

"Awww, you're dressed!" he said with mock-disappointment, mouth curling down into a pout. I felt my teeth grit, heat rising on my cheeks. Clearly, he wasn't going to forget about my state of undress in a hurry.

Note to self: Buy pyjammas.

Or a gun.

"Where's Billy?" I said tersely in a bid to change the subject. He dropped a triangle of bread into the pan, letting it sizzle for a bit before he finally spoke, his teasing pout fading into a serious look.

"There was a plane crash in Dublin last night."

"_What?_"

"The news reports are just coming in but apparently, Police Cheif Swann's daughter was onboard. Y'know, the girl who swapped with you on that exchange program? He an' my dad are pretty close so he flew straight over to Charlie's place to comfort him. Apparently, it looks like one of those freak accidents with a bird flying into the turbine or something. The plane went down and crashed into the tarmac."

"Jesus...! Is the girl alright?" My heart gave a dreadful lurch.

Jacob shook his head and flicked on the radio, his expression grim. He twisted the volume dial and I sat down at the table, shock coarsing through me as I listened to the report.

"_...Autorities today are investigating the circumstances behind a major aviation catastrophe at Dublin International Airport, Ireland. At 7:45pm last night, an Aer Lingus Boeing 747 carrying 140 passengers onboard- among them,several exchange students from our own Forks Academy- suffered a series of engine failures whilst coming in to land. At this present time, speculation is still rife as to the exact cause of the crash though several leads suggest pilot error may have been at play._

_Among the victims currently identified, 16 year old Micheal Newton and 17 year old Isabella Swann..."_

The telecaster reeled off a list of victims as long as my arm and for a brief moment, I wondered if there were _any_ students left at Forks Academy. Pushing the thought to the back of my mind, I pinched the bridge of my nose and exhaled sharply.

Today was not looking good.

After an arterie-clogging breakfast of fried bacon, eggs and sausages, Jacob helped me into his dad's rusting pick-up and drove to the campus in silence. As he walked me to the gate, nerves launched a stealth attack upon my psyche and I found myself taking a hit from my inhaler.

"You'll be fine." Jacob rubbed my arm reassuringly, his smile warm and sincere; "It's just like pulling off a band-aid- quick and dirty."

"It'd be easier if you were in here with me."

"I go to school down on the reservation but don't worry-I'll be here to pick you up when the bell rings." He enveloped me in a hug and I gasped at how soft he felt. Those muscles really lured you into a false sense of security.

"Go on. Don't be late on my watch!"

"Mrrrgh...do not want."

With a substanial amount of reluctance, I broke away from his embrace and stomped up the steps.

Inside, the melancholy in the air was thick enough to cut with a pencil. Students seemed to drift along the halls, clad in shades of grey and black in a show of grief towards their fallen comrades.

A lump formed in my throat but I swallowed it back, nervous at what the day might bring.

Would they blame me, I wondered?

If Bella Swann hadn't swapped places with me, perhaps she might still be alive.

I had only spoken to her over the internet but she made a less than memorable impression on me.

It wasn't so much that we had little in common, it was that she had one of those personalities that was positively draining. If she were a colour, she would've been beige- standard, plain, boring and dull as all hell. And she kept going on and on about how much she hated living in Forks to the point that I actively avoided Yahoo whenever her name popped up.

It was depressing talking to her, to hear her whinge over the most banal, trival things. I humoured her for as long as I could but ultimately, I had to shut her out and block her name from my messengers when she started getting clingy.

Even so, in spite of our less than stellar relationship (if you could even call it that), I never wished her any harm. I felt guilty, however, that I haven't made more of an effort to know her. I had given up too easily, become jaded by her far too soon and now, she lay cold and lifeless upon a mortuary slab.

My feet moved of their own accord.

I had no clue where I was going, only that my first class was English Lit. Still, I was completely unaware of this fact, of any of my surroundings right up to the point where I walked straight into a wall.

Or, at least, I _thought_ it was a wall.

"Nnngh!"

The person grunted with pain and I instantly jumped back, jolted out of my dark lament as a pair of icy hands clamped down on my shoulders. Looking up, I had to choke back a gasp.

A man made of solid porcelean.

He was pale to the point that I looked positively orange standing next to him, the skin stretched taunt over his skull. His hair was a dull shade of brown and thin enough that I could see his white scalp through the as wispy as it was, his hair was elaborately coifered to the point that I wondered, in my own messed up head, if he bore any relation to Donald Trump.

It was his eyes that spooked me the most, though.

Deep, dark chasms of black glaring daggers at me.

My throat went dry.

"You should... pay more attention." His voice was so soft I had to strain my ears to hear what he said. His tone was tense, forced and it sounded as though he was in a great deal of pain as he gritted out each word.

"Duely noted." I murmured, blinking up at him.

He was tall, thought not nearly as lofty as Jacob. Painfully thin and dressed in a closely tailored black suit in a style that seemed to have come from seventeenth centuary London, I wondered briefly if I might have stumbled upon an old school Goth- one with a flair for the aristocratic, it would seem, giving the antique look to the cravat peeking out of his jacket.

Yet as I gave him the once over, I found myself staring at his face.

It was hard as stone, with cheek-bones that could cut diamonds with their sharpness. His eyes were sunken and heavy set in a way that only chronic insomniacs or recovering drug addicts seemed to show and his lips, a sickly shade of bluish-pink, were pulled into a thin line.

Were he smiling, he might been vaguely attractive in that mid-ninties andrognyous, _'heroin chic'_ kind of way but right now, all I could think about was whether or not he was wretchedly ill.

"Are you alright?" I asked him, placing a hand on his shoulder as though he might sag under his own weight. He stared at me, unblinking and a shard of ice stabbed at my innards.

"I've...been better." he murmured, his dark gaze never leaving me.

It was one of the creepiest things I'd ever had the misfortune of laying eyes upon.

Clearing my throat roughly, I fished my timetable out of my handbag and attempted to decipher it. Jabbing a finger at the room number, I avoided his cold stare and exaled sharply.

The air had gotten a good deal colder in a short amount of time.

From the mournful atomosphere or from the tension exuding from Mr. Creepy Eyes, I wasn't entirely sure.

"Uhm.. do you know where Room 308 is?"

That stare. God, please stop looking at me like I'm a hamburger!

My fist clenched by my side. If he didn't blink soon, I was all set to punch him-

"First door..." he paused for an inordinate amount of time, one boney finger pointed down the hall; "...On the left."

"Uh.. thanks."

"You're... Irish."

I grimaced, silently cursing my accent.

"Y-yes. I'm an exchange student."

"Do... you like... Guinness?"

Oh, god. He did _not_ just ask me that! Okay, now I'm _really_ going to punch him!

As though I'd given voice to that thought, the creepy guy stiffened and turned so quickly I could feel the snap of wind as he broke the sound barrier. Without another word, he stalked off down the hall and out of sight.

Relief flooded my being.

Here's hoping I don't run into _him_ again...!

I hate Mondays.

As rotten luck would have it, the only free seat in the English Lit class was by the end window.

Right next to Mr. Creepy Eyes. I shuddered but bit back my distain as I lowered myself into my seat. Again with the staring. Where it not for the slow drum of his spindly fingers upon the desk, he could've been a statue.

Or an exceptionally ugly gargoyle.

The teacher droned on about something or other- I forget the subject of discussion. It was so hard to concentrate with those dark eyes boring into me. After twenty minutes without ever once seeing him blink, it got almost too much to bare and I snapped.

"If you don't stop staring;" I hissed low, not wishing to cause a scene; "I'm gonna stab you in the eye with my protractor and skull-fuck you!"

He finally blinked. The movement seemed to last an eternity.

"I... have have offended you." That soft, low voice with the unnecessarily long pauses. It was clipped and sounded far too eloquint for a high schooler.

He gulped and suddenly winced, scrunching his eyes shut as his body shuddered with an unseen force. I instantly felt guilty for snapping at him and sighed, a ran raking through the little hair covering my scalp.

"Sorry. It just really disturbs me when people stare. I-I didn't mean to be rude."

"It... is no trouble." He pulled open his book to a random page and focused his gaze on that instead. For a brief moment, it was my turn to watch him as he looked intent on setting fire to the pages using nothing but the power of his mind. A vein bulged in his forehead and it was then I noticed just how thin his skin was.

I could see the blue web of veins throbbing in the hollows of his cheek so clearly it was as though he was made of glass. This man was sick, of that I had no doubt. A film of sweat enveloped his forehead and he grunted, inperceptably low.

He was in pain.

"Mister, are you okay? Do you need to see the nurse?" I said gently, cautious as I placed a hand on his back. A low groan sounded from him at my touch and I instantly pulled away.

"Cullen. My name is Edward Cullen."

A wry smile pulled at the corners of my lips. A name for that stoney face. It didn't suit him. He looked like a John or possibly even a Bob. Generic. I cleared my throat again, and fished a packet of cherry throat lozenages from my pocket, holding it out in offering.

"Here. These might help. You look like death warmed up."

"Feels...like it." He looked at the pack with a dead-eyed expression though his lips seemed to twitch into the ghost of a smile. Plucking a sweet from the packet, he rolled it around between thumb and forefinger for a brief moment before he stiffened once more, another tremor rippling through him.

A deep, anguished moan sounded from him and for a brief moment, I heard a flash of familiarity in the noise.

His breath was ragged, a death rattle.

I glanced around the room. Everyone seemed to be oblivious to his plight, the teacher waxing lyrical about Shakespere or some other famous playwright.

"C'mon. I'm taking you to the nurse. You're obviously not well-" I said quietly, touching his shoulders with the very tips of my fingers.

He jumped as though I'd just electrocuted him and as he rounded on me, I was startled by the abrupt change in his expression. His nostrils flared, deep crinkles appearing around them and on the bridge of his nose, on his forehead. Those blue-tinged lips curled down in disgust and I saw fury in those black eyes-not even a reflection within the darkness.

Before I could utter another word, the bell for the end of class reverberated around the room and he was up like a shot, bolting for the door like a spooked horse. As the class filed out, I sat rooted to the spot trying to comprehend what had just transpired.

My body felt as though it had been dipped in ice water, shivers of fear rocketting up my spine as I stared after him. Every single hair on my arms stood ridgid, gooseflesh rising as I my breath caught in my throat.

_What just happened...?_

I didn't see hide or hair of Edward for most of the day so I could only assume he'd gone home.

Lunch came round and I walked into the cafeteria with a mixture of fear and confusion churning in my stomach. The room was muted, people talking in hushed whispers about the dreaded plane crash or casting me the occasional conspiritorial glance.

A sigh escaped me as I set a plate of spaghetti down on my tray.

This trip was'nt going to be easy if the hushed whispers were any indication.

I was an oddity, a novelty that was swiftly wearing thin in in the wake of a freak accident that had claimed the lives of fifteen local students. It would be naive to expect them to welcome me with open arms and I accepted the fact, actively avoiding the larger groups for fear of worsening an already delicate situation.

Handing the attendent at the regiester a ten dollar bill, I sat down at a table in the corner and ate in silence, idly watching the array of students poiter about. As I bit into a square of soggy garlic bread, something out of the corner of my eye grabbed my attention.

At a large table directly across from me, a small bunch of students had sat down to chat and my gaze immediately fell upon them. They seemed a sight more cheerful than the rest, laughing softly at a joke from time to time and exchanging pleasentries.

They were also exceptionally well dressed in expensive threads that stood out from the clearence-sale masses.

There was four of them in all.

Two guys.

One had closely cropped black hair and a square jaw fixed in a goofy grin whilst the other looked positively constipated, a pained smile on his face as he pushed back a heap of golden curls from his downcast eyes.

And two girls.

One was a breath-taking, platinum blonde bombshell of a transvestite who's beauty was nullified by the venomous sneer she wore on her otherwise arresting face. The other was a lithe, brunette pixie of a woman who was giggling like a tickled baby. All of them freakishly pale and gaunt like Edward but with markedly more life in their eyes. One of the girls, the tiny pixie with the heart-shaped face and wide brown eyes, caught my gaze and smiled at me.

I flushed with the mortification of being caught out staring and quickly averted my gaze, finding more interest in the congealing lumps of marinara sauce on my plate. A chair scraped back and I raised my head a fraction of an inch.

Edward had joined the group.

He had removed his suit jacket and cravat and I had to choke back a gasp. His torso was wrapped in a snug, short-sleeved shirt. I could see, even from several metres away, the spidery network of veins and wrinkles in his arms.

A junkie.

He had to be.

Nobody got that emaciated without chemical aid.

He looked like an Olsen twin.

I watched him subtly for a few minutes, wondering how he came to assosiate with such a group of stylish youngsters. He didn't interact much, sagging in his seat before he lay down and rested his head in his folded arms, a pained moan escaping him.

The brunette girl placed her arms tenderly around him and hugged gently. He didn't shrug her off and for all of two seconds, I felt a stab of indignity. She whispered something in his ear that I couldn't make out and he looked up, his eyelids veiled with fatique.

They all stood up in that moment and I shrunk back, frightened I might have been caught out gawking. Thankfully, they paid me no heed as they swept by, heading out of the cafeteria. As they neared the doors, however, Edward threw me a glance over his shoulder.

I couldn't help but shudder.

He looked _hungry_.


	9. Chapter 9

Billy was sitting in the kitchen as I entered and I found he was not alone. Another man joined him, hands curled around a large mug of steaming coffee. He was trembling slightly and as my eyes scanned over the leather jacket swathing his frame, I caught sight of a gleaming gold badge.

"Hey, Billy." I forced myself to smile and he nodded towards his guest. The police offer turned slowly, studying me with curiousity. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot and bleary, rimmed with an angry shade of red that was matched by large patches around his nostrils, disappearing into the greying strands of his moustashe.

"This is the one I was tellin' you about." Billy said in a low tone and my stomach lurched uncomfortably.

"Uh, hello, Officer Swann." My feet scuffed the floor uncomfortably.

This was going to be awkward.

The police officer cast me a friendly smile but it did not extend to his eyes. Before he had a chance to speak, I pre-empted him and stared at the floorboards.

"I...heard what happened. You have my deepest sympathies."

"Thank you." his voice was hoarse from crying and as he took a sip of coffee, my heart went out to him. The man was a mess, his hair dishivelled and wild atop his head, a five 'o clock shadow evident on his chin, the lines of his face thin and drawn.

Grasping at straws in a bid to offer some level of comfort to the grieving man, I took to refilling his coffee cup when it drained low, busying myself with the task as Charlie and Billy talked among themselves.

"A goose in the turbine." Billy's voice was stiff with incredality as he shook his head.

"A fuckin' _goose_, Bill. You couldn't make this shit up." Charlie said gruffly, a low churr of approval sounding from him as I set his coffee mug before him and joined them with my own.

"I'm so sorry, sir. Truely. If I hadn't swapped with-"

Charlie sighed and petted my hand. His face was lined with premature wrinkles, flecks of grey in his auburn hair aging him by several years. "Hey. It was no-one's fault but the goddamned bird. I'll be alright."

"If there's anything I can do to help, just say the words, Charlie."

"That. That helps. Just asking." He smiled wistfully and as small as it was, there was a delicate twinkle in his slate-coloured eyes. Reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a pack of smokes and lit one up, taking a long drag, seeking solace in the arms of nicotine.

Making my excuses, I left them both to continue their conversation in peace and trekked out to the expanse of overgrown grass that served as a backyard. Jacob was inside the large woodshed, quietly grooving to some vintage LL Cool J as he busied himself with rechaining an old bicycle.

"I love this song." I said airly, sipping at the last dregs of my coffee. He looked up, smiling broadly and graciously accepted the mug of sugary tea I extended to him. "Never thought Chaka Khan and dirty rap lyrics could work so well."

"Mmm. Funny how the strangest combinations work out the best."

"Kind of like you and I, huh, Jake?"

"Harr-harr-harr!" He wrinkled his nose at me and I chuckled before sitting down beside him on an upturned fruit crate.

"So, how was your first day?" he said kindly, giving me a sweeping glance. His eye was swollen and puffed from last night and inwardly, I winced at the sight of the yellowed flesh, the makings of what was sure to be a humdinger of a shiner.

"Surprisingly dull. No-one really paid me any attention... well, except for this one guy."

"Oh-ho!" Jacob set his tools down and wiped the oil from his hands with a ragged old shirt, brows quirking with interest. "There's a guy, is there? Should I be worried?"

A sneer crept across my face.

"Urgh, no!"

"So, spill!" He scooted closer to me, tweaking my nose playfully; "What's his name?"

The knot in my stomach tightened and I frowned down at my hands, taking in the sight of my ragged, bitten nails and the callouses on my fingertips.

"Uh.. Edward."

Jacob's merry smile dropped abruptly.

"Was his last name Cullen?" his voice was rough, his brown eyes flashing with the same raw fury as that night on the reservation.

I nodded, gulping back a mouthful of coffee dregs.

"Yeah. He's a creepy little weirdo. Pretty young for a heroin junkie, to be honest."

"Junkie?" Jacob quirked an eyebrow but his lips were pulled into a thin line.

"At least, I _think_ he's a junkie. Nobody's that skinny naturally. Besides, he acted like he was on something or at least, was going cold turkey."

"Did he hurt you?" Jacob's strong hands were on my shoulders, his eyes piercing my own. "Alex-"

"No. He just weirded me out a little. He kept looking at me like I was a particularly juicy steak. His eyes-they're just frightening, Jake. No emotion. Not even a reflection of light. I swear, he's either a zombie or in serious withdrawl."

A sardonic smirk crossed Jacob's features. "Or, y'know... he could be a _vampire_!" He quipped, his tone one of amusement. I rolled my eyes and lightly smacked his cheek.

"A likely theory. He did have a certain Nosferatu look to him- all bones and freakishly long fingers. But you know as well as I do, Jake. There's no such thing as vampires."

"Cullen was at the reservation last night." Jacob said softly, motioning to the shiner growing around his left eye. "He was trespassing on Quilete land."

"And that's a bad thing...why?" I queried, reaching to brush my fingertips against the bruised flesh of his brow. He hissed sharply through his teeth but did not recoil from my touch.

"It's a long story but I'll try to explain it in laymen's terms. You know I'm Native American, right?"

"With theYahoo handle of Howling-Wolf? I taught you were a _furry_!"

"Eeeww! No!" He stuck out his tongue, nose crinkling; "What I'm _trying_ to get at is this. I'm a Quilete and thus descented from the main tribe that ruled over most of what is now Forks. The Cullens are descended from European settlers. The very same who slaughtered my ancestors in a bid to sieze control of the land. I know it's all in the past and I shouldn't be perpetuating a cycle of bad blood an' all but it's my family's honour at state."

"You sound like a disgruntled samurai." I mused, before adopting my cheesiest accent, mouth moving in a parody of badly dubbed kung-fu movies; "My honor! You have sullied it! Prepare to die by my blade! Oooowaaaah!"

Jacob rolled his eyes and pulled me into a one armed hug. "You're impossible. Still, to be serious for a minute, I want you to give that guy a wide berth."

"You don't have to tell me twice, dear. He gives me the heebie-jeebies."

He chuckled and rose to his full, imposing height before taking my hand as he walked us out towards the woods. Pointing towards the mass of trees at the property line, his hand squeezed mine a little tighter.

"The Cullens live just beyond those trees, over the border enforced by my great-great-grandfather. They are forbidden from crossing it but everyone in a while, they do like to provoke us. Promise me you'll never go in there alone, Alex. I know I can't stop you from wandering around but just...don't do anything stupid. You saw what he did to my face. If the guys weren't there to pull him back, can you imagine what might've happened?"

I shuddered as an image of Jacob channelling the Elephant Man flashed into my head.

"I'd rather not."

"Mmmm." He gave a slight nod and broke his grip on my hand, lifting his arm to drape it over my shoulder as we strolled back to the house.

"So, all ancient family history aside, any plans for the day?"

My hand moved to brush a stray lock of blonde from my eyes as I cast him a warm smile, the stress from the day vanishing as I basked in his unnatural warmth. "I'm thinking I might dye my mohawk but I haven't really decided on the colour yet. Maybe if you stuff me full of Twinkies, my mind might be a little clearer!"

He grinned broadly and rested his strong chin atop my head. "I'm sorely tempted to crack an off-colour joke but I think I'll spare your blushes for the time being!"

"Thank you kindly."

"Heh. Sooo, hair dye? Well, if you want to make a day of it, I'd suggest a trip to La Push. They've got a pretty big mall out there. Wall-Mart and everything!"

I faked a gasp of horror. "The source of all evil in the universe? _Nooo_!"

He laughed, a deep, thrilling bark of a noise and I leaned further into his touch.

"Tremble before our souless corperations with their endless variety of clearence sales! Mwahahaha!"

"Oh, lord...!"

La Push was less than fifteen miles outside Forks but for all the contrast between the two, it could've been four-thousand. Whilst Forks was a quiet, dreary town painted in shades of grey, La Push was vibrant, sunny and buzzing with life, edged with dense green forests, a wide, shimmering river running through it. Jacob explained it was called the Quillayute and seemed highly amused when I let out the odd dreamy sigh as I gazed out the truck window. The air was balmy, crisp with the scent of summer blooms.

Sunny and bright.

It was a stark contrast to the severe, grey walls of the row of large buildings sat in the middle of all this loveliness, as though dropped onto a square of black tarmac without a care or thought.

I had often wondered about the fabled halls of Wall-Mart, having heard many tall tales and urban legends of how you could buy everything and anything within it's doors plus a few things no-one had ever thought of. As I stood in the hunting aisle, I weighted the twelve-gauge shotgun in my hands, mind blown by the fact I could buy it just as easily as a stick of gum in this crazy, trigger-loving country.

It was pretty damn awesome.

Alas, I only had three hundred dollars on hand out of the sizeable allowence my grandfather had given me and my own life savings currently locked away in a bank account with a daily limit.

At the heafty price of $950, this gun was far out of my price range.

Still, a girl could dream.

Airsoft sport was a fun past-time back home on the farm and I was a pretty good shot with a gas-powered Sig Sauer pistol but to hold an actual gun, a one-hundred percent God-honest killing machine in my very hands- it was an incredible feeling.

Both frightening and exilerating in equal measures.

Still, I had no reason to justify the purchase. Jacob had warned me of the threat of bears in the woods but had reassured me the traps laid out at the land boundry were more than adequate against them. He leaned against a rack of hunting paraphenalia, watching me with a brow arched in amusement.

"Little Irish girl likes to play with shotguns!"

"Shut up!" I pursed my lips at him, placing the gun back on the rack with much reluctance on my part. "After five years of shooting pellets at tin cans, it's only reasonable I should want to upgrade."

"Easy, Bruce Campbell! There a'int no zombies in Forks! Besides, there's a three day police clearence to consider along with the fact you're a minor, fake ID or not!"

"Oh, I _know_..." I lamented that beautiful gun with the chestnut barrel and the chrome-plated gauges, pushing my trolley out of the hunting aisle. "But still. Boomstick. Want."

"If you like, I could try and convince my dad to let you fire off some buck-shot out back."

"Oh? You own some heavy artilery?"

"Eh, just a rifle for shooting elk when the season's open. If you behave, I _might_ bring you along next time." Jacob smirked at me, his teeth white and pearly against the rich copper tone of his skin. I nudged him playfully, a thrilling laugh escaping my throat.

"I always behave myself, Jake!"

"Lex.." he wangled his eyebrows and I snorted with amusement.

"Well, within reason anyhow!" I pushed the cart towards the checkout and fished my wallet from the pocket of my shorts. "You wanna grab a bite while we're here or d'ya wanna polish off some of this junk on the ride home?" I said, jabbing a finger at the veritable mountain of potatoe chip bags, boxes of cookies, Twinkies, candy bars and countless other fine cavity-inducing products of America.

How he managed to stay so trim, I had no idea. It gave further fuel to the steroid theory.

"There's a nice Italian joint just a little further into town if you fancy recreating that one scene from Lady and the Tramp..." he replied, grunting as he hefted a large bag of coal onto the conveyor belt.

"Oooh, can I be Tramp?"

"All your life!"

"Jackass."

I was in the middle of changing into my newly-purchased cami-and-shorts night clothes when I felt it: that strange, curious feeling of sensing someone's presence before I saw it. As I pulled the top down over my stomach, I moved towards the window and gave the blind a sharp yank.

The white canvas jerked upwards and I emitted a cry of alarm.

Down on the street below, standing next to Billy Black's rusty old lemon of a truck, a skeleton stared up at me. Those same ruby-red eyes that I had only glimpsed the night before blazed brightly in the shadows of approaching dusk and as I leaned on the sill for a closer look, a horrid jolt of recodnition seized me.

It was Edward.

Or at least, I _thought_ it was him.

The face below was little more than white muslin pulled taunt over spindly bones, held upright by sheer will alone. He wasn't wearing a shirt and even from two storeys up, I could count every rib jutting painfully from his chest, my eyes tracing over the line of his sternum, the hollow of his collar, the visable vertabrae in his neck.

He reminded me of those horrific images glaring up from the pages of my history books. Holocaust victims sprung to mind and I grimaced at the thought. Even they seemed almost healthy in contrast to this pitiful creature peering up at me with such frightful eyes.

Oh god, those eyes.

They looked crazed, the pupils two black pin-pricks in a canvas of shining crimson. I could see nothing of the whites, the red blaze consuming them as though his very eye-balls were bleeding.

A tiny whisp of peachy fuzz covered his head and his skin seemed at least two sizes too tight for his frame, a mixture of off-white and deathly grey, mottled with bruises and liver spots.

I tried hard to avoid his gaze, piercing as it was but like with a car crash, I could not pull myself away from the carnage that lay before me. He could sense my fear, of that I had no doubt for he smiled up at me. Deep wrinkles formed at the corners of his mouth as the sinew pulled tight and I almost screamed.

That disgusting mouth was filled with rows of long, tapered fangs, each coated with a horrid black substance that dribbled down his chin, the origin of which I dreaded to think of. He threw his head back and made a curious sound- somewhere between a rasp, a bark and a laugh.

It made my blood run cold and in that moment, I felt any semblance of bravery desert me.

My bare feet skidded on the polished wood floor as I scrambled across the room to the door.

I'm not going to scream.

I'm not going to scream.

Sweet zombie Jesus, what the _fuck_ is that thing?

I nearly crashed head first into Jacob's door in my haste to get to it and I had to brace my hands on the knock was frantic, betraying my panicked state and as the door flew open, I launched myself at the poor boy, arms tightening with a death grip around his neck.

"Guh! Lex! Lex! Choking! Can't breathe!"

"C-Can I sleep w-with you tonight?" The words tumbled out in a terrified squeak as I trembled against the taunt line of his chest, my hands unwinding to dip beneath his armpits and clench around his waist.

"_W-What?_" He choked, eyes widening as a hot blush coloured his cheeks a rosy pink. I glanced over my shoulder to the open door of my bedroom, my entire body trembling.

"T-T-There's s-something outside my window! Oh, Jake! Why didn't I just grab that shotgun!"I could hardly think as hysteria threatened to devour me whole. Brows furrowing, Jacob took my hands and pried them from his frame before grabbing a baseball bat that lay next to his nightstand.

"What is it?"

"I don't know but it looks evil!" I cried, feeling hot tears flow down my cheeks.

If only I had been able to ship my Aersofts overseas. It was so much easier to feel a few shades braver with a fistful of metal weighing in my hand, regardless of it being real or not. That thing outside my window had to die.

There was no question of it.

It wasn't human.

It wasn't natural.

It was an unholy abomination.

It had Edward Cullen's face and it smiled at me- that same hungry smile he had cast me in the cafeteria.

Oh god.

My chest feels tight.

Choking.

Can't breathe.

"Easy, 'Lex. Breathe." Jacob handed me my little red inhaler, urging me to take a blast.

My hands trembled uncontrolably and I dropped the device several times, feeling crushing jaws of doom clamp down hard on my ribcage. He sat me down on the bed and pleaded for me to stay put as he raised the bat in his hands and crept towards the window.

Jacob's face was hard in the dying light and his eyes narrowed ominously as he glanced out of the window, kneeling on the seat. As soon as I had loosened the tightness in my chest, I felt strong enough to join him, peeking through my hands to the view of the street below, beyond which lay the forest.

Darkness there and nothng more.

Not even a mouse stirred in the stillness.

No breeze, no noise.

Just an empty street, silent as the grave.

"You okay?" Jacob queried, curling an arm around my shoulders as I let out a strangled sob.

"It wasn't a dream, Jake. I saw something- it was the devil himself! I'm sure of it. Oh, god, it was terrifying! All teeth and bones and evilness and-and...!"

"Slow breathes, Alex. Ssshh." He petted my hair gently, leading me towards the hallway and back into his room. "Tell me exactly what you saw."

I sat down on his bed. It was much softer than the stiff mattress of the guest room but smaller in size. Gulping back the dryness in my throat, a whimper escaped my throat as he knelt before me, his hands resting gently on my knees as he peered at me with concern in his chocolate-coloured eyes.

"Alexandra."

"It was a creature! A hungry, emaciated shell of a man. It had a mush full o' fangs and blood-red eyes-!"

"Did it do anything to you? Was it in the room with you? Lex?" Jacob's voice was steady but I could sense the panic he tried so hard to conceal. I shook my head, freshly dyed blue hair flopping in my face.

"N-no. It just stood there smiling at me. Then, it made this aweful sound. Like a death rattle or something. I... Jacob, what _was_ that?"

He chuckled awkwardly, moving to sit beside me as his hands took to stroking my back soothingly.

"I think..." he dipped to place a reassuring kiss to my forehead; "...You need to lay off the cheese before bedtime."

"I'm _not_ joking, Jacob!"

"It was probably something you ate. That canelloni _did _look kinda funky after all-"

"_It was Edward Cullen!_" I all but shrieked at him and his hands stopped their idle minestrations. The expression on his face was hard to read but I could see the knots of muscle in his jaw strain with tension as he struggled to surpress whatever it was he could be feeling.

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure.." I whimpered, burying my face into the nape of his neck.

He smelt of lemon soap and fire.

And sunkissed dog.

My nerves calmed somewhat and I wrapped my arms around him, fearful that if I dared let go, that wretched creature would return to drag me down to the black pits of Hell itself.

"If it was him, then he's clearly not human in any sense. I-I'm sorry. I sound like such a fool."

"It's alright, 'Lex. Sssh. Easy. Don't give yourself an asthma attack. C'mon. You can stay here tonight." His voice was soft and gentle and I felt reassured when his shoulders slackened, the tension in his jaw disipating somewhat. A low squeak sounded in the hall outside and I jumped, my raw nerves surging to the surface.

Billy rolled into the door-frame, his face grey and plastered with concern.

"Everything alright? I thought I heard a noise-"

"It's fine, Dad." Jacob said calmly, forcing a sheepish smile. "'Lex just had a night terror."

Billy's brows arched in surprise and he inched into the room slightly. I noted he was wearing Simpsons slippers beneath the hem of his sweatpants and without his trusty Steson, a bald patch the size of a euro coin shone out among the deep black sheen of his hair.

A comforting image.

Normal. Not scary at all.

"Sorry if I woke you, Bill."I found myself murmuring, my cheeks certain to be glowing with embarassment. Maybe it _was_ a dream after all. Urgh.

I knew I shouldn't have watched Dracula before I retired for the night-

"Happens to the best of us, dear. Still, that's what dream-catchers are for." He motioned towards the large mobile dangling from the ceiling over Jacob's bed. It was larger than the one over the headboard of the guest bedroom and a touch more elaborate, the feathers sapphire blue as opposed to black.

"Guess your one must be faulty." the old brave smiled wryly and I emitted a nervous laugh, feeling as though I might suddenly collaspe from exhaustion.

"She can stay with me tonight...uh, if that's alright." It was Jacob's turn to blush.

Billy's chuckle grew in volume and he nodded, wheeling himself back out to the hallway.

"It's fine but... you know the rules, Jake." he had the same pearly smile as his son, his eyes glinting with mischief; "No bitches after ten!"

"_Dad!_"

"Oh, lord.." I pinched the bridge of my nose, snorting with laughter despite my frazzled nerves.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Which, evidently, a'int a lot!"

Before any of us had a chance to protest our virtue, the mad ol' Quilete's squeaking wheels faded down to a low creak until he rolled into his own bedroom, the door shutting with a click. Jacob grimaced, getting up to close over his own door before leaning against it, his expression one of utter mortification.

"I swear, he'll be the death of me one of these days...!"

"Heh. It's a father's duty to embarass his son. Comes with the job description, I suppose."

"Mmm. And what a fine job he's doing.." Jacob muttered, moving to the other side of the bed and wrenching back the covers.

I shimmied in beneath them and pulled the blankets up to my neck, watching as he clapped his hands to extinguish the light overhead before reaching towards the nightstand. Upon it, a small domed contraption sat motionless, though with a quick flick of a wall switch, it started to swirl, throwing up small light projections of constillations and stars on the ceiling.

He snuggled in beside me and I nestled in the circle of his arms, feeling safe and content in his company as I watched the tiny illuminations swirl around the room.

"Is the light show all part of your nefarious plan to seduce me?" I quipped, my nerves dying down to a few uneasy chuckles. He shook his head and wound an arm around my waist, pulling me closer.

"This? This is nothing. Just figured it might help you sleep. Works for me when my brain makes with the freaky."

"It's pretty."I pressed a hand flat against his chest. His heart-beat was steady, strong and loud as it drummed against his ribcage and I sighed, soothed by the sound of him.

"You sure you're alright? No chance of heart-attack? Bed wetting, maybe?"

I punched in in the arm, taking deliberate care to tap the cut on the bicep. He yelped with pain.

"Your sensitivity is so touching, Jake."

"Hey, I can be sensitive! I can be_ very_ sensitive if you just let me!" he squeaked, wincing as his arm stung with a dull ache. A snort of laugher escaped me and I covered my face with my hands, my nervous tremors giving way to quivers of laughter.

"Er... that came out wrong!" Jacob caught his unwitting innuendo before I could point it out and in the dim light, his cheeks glowed magenta. Shaking my head, I scooted forward and brushed a lock of silky black hair behind his ear.

"Goodnight, Howlin' Wolf." I pecked his lips gently and he gasped at my touch, his jaw slackening. He didn't trust himself to speak and instead cleared his throat, patting my head awkwardly before rolling onto his side, his back to me.

The heat rolled off him in spades and I grinned, pleased at having rendered him speechless for once.

Still, as I settled back against the mattress, my thoughts drifted to that frightful apperation outside my window. My sleep was fitful, restless as I had to contend with the sight of that horrid mouth, dripping with viscous black liquid as the creature smiled at me, stalking my dreams.

A few times during the night, I felt Jacob poke me in the ribs and at first, I rolled to my side, the action buying him a few minutes of peace. After a while, though, he just gave up trying to slow my twitches and curled into a foetal position, perched precariously at the edge with the sheets bunched around him.

It was still dark out when I woke up for the final time. The numbers on the bedside clock showed 4:23am in glowing green letters and I sighed, knowing fully well I'd be hard pressed to fall back to sleep after having jolted awake.

I glanced at Jacob, making out his huge form in the darkness. He had turned towards me in the night, one hand curled under his head while the other lay draped over his stomach, dangerously close to brushing the hem of his boxers where a tell-tale tent had begun to form.

I found myself coughing though it had little to do with the asthma that plagued me on a daily basis.

Lying back against the mattress, I moved to take his wrist, pulling his arm over my waist as I snuggled into him once more, my back flush with his front. He murmured something incoherent in his sleep and his arms curled tightly around my shoulders, effectively ensnaring me.

I was all set to surrender to the pleasent warmth that radiated from him, a curious trait, when I felt it. The slow rake of his hands along my abdomen, brusing upwards as they edged towards my chest. I bit my lip, caught between the urge to laugh as his fingertips tickled the bare skin of my midriff, to elbow him roughly and playfully chastise his daring actions or to simply let nature take its' course.

I went with the third option and sure enough, he had my small breasts cupped in each hand.

Experimentally, I wiggled my hips against him, brushing against his all too obvious state of arousal. Unless my hearing was going out of sync, I could've sworn he _purred_. Shaking my head, I decided to let him have his fun.

It felt quite arousing in all honesty and the slight rocking motion he made with his hips made me sigh. The purr in his throat grew louder as I hooked a leg around his, moulding myself to the shape of him. Secretly, I had long dreamed of doing things like this with him though in my less than innocent thoughts, he was usually wide awake and lavishing me with his full, unwaivering attention.

Still, I wasn't one to complain. I was certainly no shrinking violet in _that_ respect but it had been some time since I last indulged in noctornal activities of a more pleasurable nature. I had planned all along to let Jacob have his wicked way with me this summer, to let him pop his cherry so to speak. After three years of "courting"-if you could call it that-, I trusted him enough to let him in, to feel the hard, smooth lines of his muscles envelope me, hearing him gasp above me as he trembled with carnal delight.

His breath was hot against my ear and he moaned low in his sleep, the hand at my left breast squeezing lightly. My toes curled and I felt a wave of desire wash over me. With great difficulty owing to how tightly he held me, I managed to turn and face him, hands cupping his cheeks as I leaned in to kiss him, caution flung clean out of the window as I sucked gently on his bottom lip.

It felt full and plump, warm against my own.

Billy was just down the hall and I strained my ears, alert to the tell-tale creak of floorboards under the movement of his wheelchair signalling his presence. Mercifully, it was all quiet out on the landing and I felt a touch bolder, sliding my leg up his as my fingers tangled themselves in his wild mane of ebony hair.

"Mmm... 'Lex..." he purred sleepily against my lips and I smirked, feeling his hands drop to my hips, edging me against the swelling between his own. My response was to lick him playfully, trailing a wet line up to his ear until I bit his earlobe just hard enough to hear him gasp.

His eyes flew open abruptly and he stared, blank and befuddled for a few seconds before he yelped in alarm and shoved backwards, toppling clean off the bed with a dull thump. A hand flew to my mouth, silencing the helpless cackle that threatened to betray me to the wily old Indian at the end of the hall.

Jacob gawked at me, bug-eyed and drained of colour as he leaned back on his hands.

"_L-Lex! What're you-?_"

"You're an awefully handsy sleeper, Jake. Not that I'm _complaining_ or anything." I breezed, laying on my stomach to squint at him in the darkness. Even in the dim twilight, I could see the wide, deer-in-the-head-lights expression on his face. A husky chuckle escaped me and I curled my index, beckoning him near.

Whatever fear left in me from seeing that ghastly vision of death beyond my window had all but vanished, replaced with a prickly heat that raised gooseflesh on my skin for all the right reasons. There was an audible gulp in the air and I heard the swish of the rug as it crumpled under his movements.

"Geez, I'm sorry! This is _so_ embarassing-!" he whispered sheepishly, perching himself on the edge of the bed. "Uhh...maybe I should go sleep on the floor or something. Or in the shower. With the cold tap on full blast..."

"Or, y'know.." My voice was laced with a heavy edge and I had to stifle a laugh. I was hardly a master of seduction but when rubbed the right way, there was no accounting for teenage hormones and the wonders they weaved. "...You could just come back to bed! I might even decide to sleep in the nude tonight...!" 

"Jesus, Alex! You've a mind like a sewer sometimes!" His voice, though low, was rough and full of irritation. "Why didn't you wake me sooner?"

"You looked like you were enjoying it. Seemed a shame to cut things short."

"Don't encourage me, 'Lex. Please."

"Why not? You make no secret of wanting me-" 

"Stop. Just...just _stop_." He rubbed his face roughly and let out a deep, dejected sigh. "You have no idea what you do to me. Not a single blessed clue."

My hands found his shoulders and I sat up on my knees, curling my arms around him as I felt that wave of desire recede.

Too soon.

I wanted more, to feel that little spark of delight within consume me like wildfire. Pure, raw need overrode any sense of self-restraint and I turned him towards me, a wolfish grin curling over my lips, my gaze dipping to the apex of his hips.

"Oh, I can wager a guess or two. It's fine, Jake, though if you're going to be feeling me up, I'd rather you were wide awake for it."

His hands fisted in his hair and he stood up sharply, spinning on his heels before yanking the bedroom door open. "I need a shower..." he mumbled, more to himself than I before he disappeared down the hall, his bare feet slapping the wood.

I sighed dejectedly, rolling onto my back as an arm flopped over my eyes.

I am Alexandra's Rampaging Libido.

Jacob was in the shower for an innordinate lenght of time and I knew all too well _exactly_ what he was getting up to. That thought gave a pleasurable stroke to my ego and as I lay back against the soft coverings of his bed, I wondered how long it would be before he finally gave in and succumbed to his long-stifled urges and christened his rickety ol' bed with gusto.

Alas, we didn't share a bed for much longer so I never got a chance to find out. After four days of pushing my luck, of watching him sleep with a pillow bunched between his legs, he declared me big enough to sleep on my own and all but threw me back into the guest-room. I admit, I was disappointed to leave the warmth of his bed but I doubt it had anything to do with rejection.

Chances were, he didn't fancy having his father rolling in on us mid-liason or something to that effect.

Yet, as I watched him towel dry his hair as he stalked into the kitchen on Friday afternoon, there was something different in his stanch. I knew the look on his face well-it was one I'd worn many times in my last relationship when I was aching for a release that was staunchly denied by a man with all the drive and sexual prowness of a dead fish.

It was a maddening sensation and I felt sorry for him.

Yet as guilty as I felt for putting in that state in the first place, the smirking sadist in me got a huge kick out of watching him squirm. Sensing my gaze, Jacob quickly fixed his face in a smile but he was fooling no-one.

Billy spread out the papers before him, peering at the obituries and frowning darkly. The announcements spanned four whole spreed-sheets.

"Sam called." he said, not looking up as he directed his words to his son; "Him, Paul and Emery are bandin' together for a hunt down in Washington State. Deer season's come in early this year."

"I'd rather stay an' hang out with Lex, Dad. We were plannin' on hitting up that new kareoke bar down in La Push-"

"_Jacob_."

I knew that tone.

It was the same with every parent regardless of race, creed or nationality.

That unmistakable _'Don't agrue with me' _tone that silenced many a cocky teenager since the dawn of civilization. I blinked at Billy's use of it. Unless I missed something, there was nothing to indicate Jacob had done anything wrong-

"But Dad-"

"When was the last time you stalked a stag with your cousins?" Billy said tensely and I found myself clearing my throat roughly as I rinsed out the dishes in the sink. It wasn't good to get involved in what sounded like the makings of an arguement yet morbid curiousity compelled me to stay put.

"..Or visited Rachel for that matter? She's been dying to see you all year. You _are_ still her baby brother after all."

"I knooow..." Jacob whined and I could _hear_ him rolling his eyes. "But I had plans for this weekend-!"

"You know as well as I do how much you need this. For your own sake, Jake. Go hunting."

"What am I, chopped offal?" I interjected in what I hoped was a jovial tone, unnerved by the weighted edge in Billy's tone.

He looked at me with a calm expression but there was tension in his eyes.

"I was rather looking forward to meeting the legendary Black sisters while I'm here. Not to impose, or anything."

"Uhh.." Jacob scuffed his feet awkwardly and he lowered his gaze to the floor, shoulders tensed with unease. "Not that I don't want to introduce you or anything but...well, this is kind of a guy thing."

"Oh, I see." My hands folded across my chest. I wasn't mad, just mildly disappointed. Still, it would've been selfish to assume he'd give up all his free time to be with me. "Hey, no biggie. We can horrificly butcher some Barry Manalo tracks when you get back."

"You're not mad? I know you kinda had your heart set on it."

I waved a hand at him and smiled, sitting up on the kitchen work top as I cast him my best lopsided grin. "The bar'll still be there when you get back, Jake. Besides, you've been starin' at _my_ ugly mush for nearly a week now. If I were you, I'd be craving some man-time too."

He arched his eyebrows, hands flying to his chest in mock horror. "_You_? Ugly? Never!"

My eyes rolled behind the thin rims of my glasses. "Go. Have fun. Bring me back a deer skull or something equally gristly."

Billy gave a curt nod and folded his paper, resting it on the table before him as he tented his fingers and lay back with a thoughtful expression. "It'll only be for the weekend, Alex. We normally do this every month-y'know, manly bonding and what-not. The boys get pissy if he misses out, you can understand, right?"

"It's no bother, Bill. I'm sure I can find more amusing activities to pass the time."

"Well, it might not be your cup of tea but I'd appreciate it if you could maybe come with to Bella's funeral tomorrow." Billy's eyes were heavy despite his smile and my lips thinned with discomfort. I was never one for funerals but they were a necessary evil when you lived in a small, isolated little village out in the rural fringes of Dublin.

By the time I was twelve years old, I'd been to no less than twenty- most were friends of my grandparents or distant cousins twice removed but it didn't get any easier regardless of how many times my little black dress got an airing.

Still, I did not wish to seem cold and uncaring so of course, I agreeded to be Billy's escort.

I also wished to pay my own respects to the girl who had perished in that senseless catastrophe.

The old patriach nodded and he cast a glance at Jacob, his brow furrowed slightly.

"Then it's settled. Start packin'. You'll wanna get movin' before that storm hits."

"Can I at least finish my lunch first?" Jacob snapped, spearing a cherry tomato on his fork. He sighed, agitated and cast me a pleading look but who was I to argue for his sake? It was clear from the finality in Billy's voice that the discussion was over and he would have no more say in the matter.

I helped him pack, folding several pairs of jean shorts into a battered old suitcase he'd pulled from the back of the down stairs closet. He sat on the edge of the living room couch, watching as I pushed down on the lid to jam it shut before clicking the metal clasps into place.

"I really don't wanna go..." his voice was small and meek and it sounded decidingly alien coming out of his normally strong, confident frame.

"Then don't. Tell your cousins you're already busy and leave it for another time-"

Jacob reached forward suddenly, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me close to him. I jumped in alarm. His forehead was hot enough to burn through the fabric of my shirt as he rested it on my navel.

"I can't."


	10. Chapter 10

"Jake..." Worry washed over me and I placed my palm against his head. How he'd managed not to spontaniously combust, I'll never know. His head was boiling hot, enough to ellicit a dull sting on my own flesh. The sweat was pouring down his temples and I could tell from the dark circles under his eyes that he was one sick puppy.

"You're burning up, man! Are you sure you want to go ahead with this trip?"

"I'll be okay. I _need_ this, Alex. I need to...to vent some frustration, so to speak." Jacob's cheeks flushed thought it was hard to tell if it was out of embarassment or the fever that had him breaking out in a clammy sweat.

"I _told_ you it wasn't good to go shirtless in this weather but do you listen? Noope." I said with annoyance and he smiled, pleased that I'd steered the subject off that of his raging libido. He chuckled and the sound rasped in his throat, gritty.

It made me wince.

"You worry too much, 'Lex."

"Let me take care of you, Jake. I'll even wear the naughty nurse uniform-!"

"Mmm. Now t_here's_ an idea!"

A quick rap at the wall was enough to make him drop his hands to his sides. I turned towards the archway leading into the kitchen and found Billy in the frame, a duffle bag perched in his lap and an impatient look on his face.

"Taxi's here. Let's get a move on."

"Wait, Bill. Jake's got a _savage_ fever. Are you really sure sending him on a hunting trip is a good idea? Especially since there's a storm on the way an' all."

The old man gave me a tense smile. It was clear from the hardness in his eyes that he was swiftly losing patience. "It's sweet of you to worry, dear, but Jake's nothing if not indominable. He'll have his cousins looking out for him so don't trouble yourself. We'll have him back to you right as rain by Sunday evening at the earliest."

"Hrrrm..." I glanced at Jacob.

He looked utterly defeated, exhaustion paling his normally tanned face. He said nothing as he stood up, grabbing the handle of his suitcase and the duffle his father extended before he stalked, like a prisoner facing execution, down the hall towards the open front door.

I watched him from the porch, my heart heavy with uncertainty. This all seemed so abrupt, so out of the blue that there was no way it could be a simple trip. It was a cover for some big secret, it had to be. My spidey senses were tingling and it only lead to bad things.

Jacob's eyes were fixed on me as he settled into the taxi, his face drawn and gaunt with a haunted expression. I followed him anxiously, watching as the yellow car sped down the street and rounded a corner, swiftly disappearing out of the neighbourhood.

Billy placed a hand on the small of my back and cleared his throat.

"I know it's all very sudden, Alex." He sensed my unease and spoke in a resigned tone; "But Jacob's been going through a rough time lately."

"Oh?" my brows arched upwards; "Something he's not telling me?"

"It's not my place to say. He blows hot and cold over the smallest things these days. Puberty. It's a bitch." Billy brushed his hair back from his face and rubbed under his nose with one long, wrinkled finger.

"Wait, isn't Jake seventeen? Surely he's not still developing at this stage in his life!"

"No-one ever tell you guys change slower than girls, Alex?" Billy smirked and I saw echoes of Jacob's wry charm in his face. My hands dug into the pockets of my jeans and I scuffed my heals on the porch deck.

"I know that, Bill but still..."

"Ahh, the Black boys have always been late bloomers. Don't go working yourself into a coniption over it. He just needs to go blow off some steam."

"By blowing the head off Bambi. Charming!"

The old Quilete gave a barking laugh and shook his head in amusement. "A'int that the truth! So, what'll you do with yourself today? I apologize for wiping your schedule clean like that."

Shrugging, I rocked back and forth on the balls of my heels, looking up at the sky. It was a pearly grey colour, though the covering of clouds were nothing if not ominous. I knew from experience it was set to lash rain but I didn't really give it much thought, used to foul weather as I was.

"I've got a ton of history homework to catch up on so I figured I might take a stroll down to the libary, hit the books an' all."

"Oh, what're you studying?" Billy cocked his head at me as I jumped the ramp and landed shakily on the kerb below.

"Those crazy ol' Nazis and occultism in the Third Reich."

"_Occultism_? Geez, and here I was worrying about the rise of creationism in public schools!"

"Nnnnnaaazi vampirrrres!" I cried in my best Crow T Robot voice, flailing my hands out before me.

Billy placed a hand to his head, face-palming as a deep, shuddering groan escaped him.

"Great Spirit have mercy...!"

It took about an hour to walk into the centre of the town and by the time I'd scaled the vertigo-inducing heights of the libary steps, rain was already beginning to fall, a light drizzle coating my bare arms. I rushed inside, shaking away the wetness as I stood in the lobby and the receptionist glared ruefully over the rim of her coke-bottle glasses.

I ignored her and instead took to following the signs to the History department, soon stumbling into a cavernous room with high-vaulted celings and towering rows of bookshelfs stretching far beyond my sight.

I walked amongst the dusty rows, a finger brushing along the bookspines as I walked, eyes scanning for anything of discernable interest. Military History wasn't too hard to find and as I pulled one large, heavy brown book from it's place amongst several paper-backs on the subject of Spitfire planes, the scent of musky antiquity filled my lungs.

Mmm. Old book smell. How I love it so.

I compiled a stack of relevent material and plonked myself down at one of the grand mahogany tables set in the centre of the room. With my school-books at hand, I pulled a pad of yellow legal sheets from my satchel and set to work on an essay about the Gustapho's influence on war-time Germany.

Headphones firmly fixed to my head, my MP3 player was set to shuffle and I had to force back a snort at the twisted irony of hearing industrial German metal blasting through my eardrums as I was set to scribbling down notes. I was half-way into the first chorus of _Du Riechst So Gut, _scratching down a paragraph of chicken scrawl as my head bobbed in time to Till Liendeman's gutterial growls when I felt a presence by my side.

I looked up, momentarily startled.

"Hello again."

It was Edward Cullen.

Or, at the very least, his healthier, slightly less andrognyous twin brother. I switched off the music, pulling my headphones down to my neck as I stared at him, watching as he took the seat next to mine and placed a large, chunky leather-bound book on the table before him.

"Mind if I join you?"

His voice was much clearer than before, his accent hard to place. It was somewhere in the middle between upper-class British and North American lilt and it sounded a world away from the rasping, hoarse gasps he exuded the very first time I saw him.

He was a damn sight brighter, too, skin plump and a lively, pale pink in stark contrast to the sickly grey shade he was sporting on Monday. Even his hair had filled out, shining bronze and full-bodied and for a brief moment, I thought of asking him the name of his wig supplier. It looked exceptionally well crafted.

There was some fat on his bones now but he still retained an underweight look about him, dressed simply in black skinny jeans that could've been painted onto him and a mocha-coloured silk shirt with ruffled sleeves that looked like it had been plucked straight from the Seventies.

"Uhh..." I swallowed awkwardly, remembering Jacob's warning. _Give him a wide berth_. _The man is dangerous._ Giving him an uncertain look, I felt my brow crinkle. He didn't _look_ all that threatening but if living in a notioriously rough part of Dublin for eleven years had thought me one thing it was that you should never trust what your eyes tell you.

It's only ever the tip of the whole rotten iceberg.

Edward looked at me expectantly, as though waiting for me to voice my concerns but instead, I forced a troubled smile and glanced at the book before him. It was an antolodgy of Edgar Allan Poe's writing and I swallowed down the urge to roll my eyes.

Yup. Definately Goth.

Or, judging by the amount of purplish-pink gloss on his lips, an exceptionally well-read Emo.

"Glad to...uh.. see you're cured of what ails you." I managed to offer, hoping my voice sounded cheery. In all honesty, I wasn't really in the mood to entertain another human being, too burdened by a mixture of my essay deline and Jacob's abrupt departure.

He grinned broadly and I shuddered. I'd only seen that look once before- in a picture of Ted Bundy's mugshot plastered on one of the many true-crime books my grandmother kept stacked by the fireplace. There was nothing comforting about it and I unconsciously shrank back in my chair.

"I've been sick for a while but I got better." He said simply, his gaze never leaving me.

It was then I noticed the change in his eyes.

They should've been pitch black, dead and devoid of emotion. Instead, they were the colour of clear honey and seemed to glisten in the light of the old-fashioned lamps built into the table. I quirked an eyebrow and before I could stop myself, the words came tumbling out of my mouth before I had a chance to reign them in.

"Did you get contacts?"

"Hmm? Contacts?" He looked highly amused by my admittedly rude and unfounded question and as he reached to push a lock of hair from his large forehead, I noted the dark circles and ashen lines around his eyes and mouth were gone, replaced with smooth skin that glowed with health.

"Your eyes;" I said unsteadily, gulping back a lump in my throat; "They were black the last time I saw you."

"Ahh, yes." He made a dismissive, sweeping gesture with his hand and I saw his fingernails were overly long for a guy, tapered into sharp points. "I'm afraid_ those_ were the contacts. My illness... it makes me rather sensitive to light, you see. Prescription shade lenses. They're the wave of the future! I don't have to worry about looking like a douche wearing sunglasses indoors."

"Oh." You look like a douche regardless, I though, struggling not to sneer at his horribly cliched taste in literiture.

Clearing my throat, I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose and turned back to my books, feeling increasingly unnerved by his presence as the minutes ticked by.

And yet as dismissive and rude as I was deliberatly being, he did not take offense to my aloofness. Instead, he thumbed the cover of one of my books and hummed a noise of approval, index finger tracing over the embossed title in a way that was positively indecent.

"I'd like to have you for dinner sometime."

I blaunched.

Tell me I did _not_ just hear that!

"W-What?"

"Din-ner. You know.." he rubbed his stomach with one hand, one sharp eyebrow arched in condescending amusement; "...Food. Eating. Together. Yum-yum."

"B-But you barely know me!" I spluttered, glancing wildly around the room. This had to be a wind up. I'm sure of it. Any minute now, Ashton Kutcher is going to pop out from behind a wilted ficus and announce I'm being punk'd. And I am going to punch him in the face regardless.

"Mmmm. That's why I ask. I'd like to get you know you better." Edward's voice was suave, the words rolling off his tongue in a manner that was surely well rehearsed.

What a sleazeball.

"Do you even know my name?" I found myself retorting dryly, eyes narrowing as I shot him a dubious look.

"Alexandra Elvira Sweeney."

My eyes snapped open, widening to saucers.

Holy fuck.

How did he find _that_ out? I never told anyone my middle name, about the monicker my _Mistress of The Dark_-loving grandfather had bestowed upon me at my Christening ceromony, not even Jacob.

It was one secret I was determined to take with me to my grave, mortifying as it was.

Okay, now I'm well and truely freaked out.

Jumping up from my seat, I grabbed my books and stuffed them quickly into my satchel, feeling my heart hammer in my chest. The only way he could've possibly known that is if he had somehow or another read through my personal school record and unless there had been a mass exodus regarding the Freedom of Information Act, I found that to be a very remote likelihood.

"I have offended you once again. I'm making a habit of it these days, it would seem." Edward chuckled brightly, handing me a dog-earred copy of _The World At War: Volume Two_. I grabbed it off him, feeling my teeth gnash together.

No doubt he had blabbed it all over school. Oh, god. I'd never live it down-!

"So, dinner-" he started but I cut him off, shoving him as I barrelled past in the direction of the door.

"Flattered but spoken for." I gritted out, quietly wishing Jacob was beside me to act as a meat-shield. So help me, I was all set to bash the creep with the full force of the heavy load in my satchel but the desire to avoid a scene stopped me in the nick of time. He grabbed my wrist with lightning reflexes and I grimaced.

His pale skin was as cold as ice upon my own and it caused a shudder to quake in the depts of my soul. That clammy hand twisted slightly but it felt like a vice-grip, crushing the bones of my wrist together in a way that made me gasp with pain.

"He is a lucky dog."

"Take your hand off me this instint before I rip it off and shove it up your hole!"

The bronze-haired creep smirked and took my wrist with his other hand, tracing the lines of my palm with one long, razor-sharp nail. I saw white curls of my flesh peel away with his torturous movements and I bit my lip, willing myself not to cry as pain stung at me.

"Such a pity. You are a beautiful creature, dear Alexandra. Utterly..." he purred the word out, his dark lips too close to my ear for comfort; "...Mouth-watering."

"Stop looking at me like I'm the prime roast of the day! I have_ no interest_ in anything you have to say so go on- sling yer hook!" I nearly shrieked at him, yanking my hand away. I soon came to regret that decision for whatever way he was holding my hand, the action caused a horrid snapping sensation as I jerked away from him.

White light exploded before my eyes and my breath hitched in my throat. I could feel his frigid fingers on my shoulder, steadying me but with my free hand, I summoned upon every last ounce of strenght in my body and elbowed him hard in the ribs.

For all the good it did, I might as well have rammed my arm into a brick wall.

He barely flinched but soon loosened his grip as a low tutting noise punctured the air. We both turned simultaniously and I found myself standing face to face with the brunette girl from the cafeteria. At such close proximity, she was far prettier than I'd previous envisioned but giving the unholy amount of pain surging up my arm, I didn't have much space left in my brain to fully appreciate the fact.

"Edward!" the woman snapped, her voice clipped and clear as a bell but low enough as not to anger the stuffy receptionist out in the hall; "We've talked about this. Let her go."

The bronze-haired man grunted with displeasure but obeyed and his hand melted away from my wrist. I clutched it protectively to my chest, shocked at the sight of the five angry, purple bruises that were rapidly forming on my flesh. Five perfect impressions of the biting grip of his spindly digits.

The brunette woman sighed deeply and clicked her fingers, glaring daggers at Edward.

"Go wait in the care. Honestly, I can't take you _anywhere_!"

"But-" Edward started but he was cut off by a swift slap to the face. The sound echoed around the room, a loud, hollow crack. He didn't protest anymore after that and soon stalked off to parts unknown, his shoulders hunched and his gait brooding as he swept from the room.

The brunette fluffed out her hair.

It was the colour of a chestnut, the light catching the odd auburn highlight dotted throughout the fashionable flicked bob she wore. I stared at her, trembling in my army boots. She sensed my unease and shook her head, giving me an apologetic look.

Her eyes were the same honey colour as Edward's but unlike his, they were lively and bright without a hint of malice.

"I am _so_ sorry!" she gasped, sounding flustered. She extending a cautious hand to examine mine and I shrunk back. Not out of fear of her but more out of the worry of doing further damage to my wrist.

I swallowed hard and glanced towards the exit, chewing my lip.

"Edward's not known for his subtly. You're a brave soul to turn him down outright like that. Are you alright?"

My voice wobbled, tears of agony building behind my eyes.

"No!" I squeaked, feeling my hand begin to swell with fluid; "Jesus tap-dancing Christ, that man is _not_ human! Look what he did to me! I oughta have him done for _assault_!"

The woman winced at the sight of my mangled appendage and touched a hand to her mouth.

"I'm no expert in the matter but that hand is definately broken. Do you need a ride to the hospital? My dad's a doctor. He can help set that for you-"

"No offense but if you think I'm getting into a car with that _freak_-!" I spat the word, feeling hysteria bubble beneath the surface; "-you're clearly out of your damn mind!"

The woman flinched slightly but gave a nod of resigned agreement. Reaching into the fancy-looking handbag slung over her shoulder, she pulled out a small rectangle of paper and handed to me, her expression meek.

"At the very least, will you give him a call? You'll be seen to in record time. I'm so sorry about Edward. Truely. He doesn't know his own strenght at the best of times... or his own mind at the worst."

I whimpered, forcing an embattled smile.

"I'll send you the medical bill." I muttered sardonicly.

She grinned at that and the corners of her cheeks dimpled. A sweet, cherubic face.

"By all means." She extended a hand. Her nails were short, round and painted with a sugary, candy-floss shade of pink.

"I'm Alice."

My nerves receding slightly, I grasped her with my free hand and found her to feel a good deal warmer than the ghostly, overly touchy weirdo stalking around out front. Her hand was dainty and light, much too petite for a grown woman.

"Lex. Alexandra. But everyone calls me Lex."

"A pleasure. I only wish we were exchanging pleasentries in better circumstances."

"Does he always act like a stalker or is it simply Friday?"

Alice chuckled, an airy noise.

"For the most part. He's hasn't been right in the head for a while now." she rolled an index finger next to her temple and I managed a chuckle.

"Really? I'd never have guessed...!"

"Not since his girlfriend dumped him-Oh, goddamnit!"

A car horn blared outside and she groaned, shoulders slumping as she tossed her head back in exasperation. Casting me another sincere, apologetic look, she petted my shoulder gently as she brushed past me to the entrance hall.

"Take care of yourself, alright? Give Carlisle a shot. Trust me- it's well worth it."

I glanced down at the thick black writing on the little slip of paper she'd given me. A long number filled with many fives and noughts stared back at me along with a name.

_Carlisle Cullen, M.D._


End file.
